272 The Cicltivation of Small Fruits 



parent or husband, without taking thought of bettering their condition by 

 any enterprise in which forethought, energy, and business ability, have their 

 place. All these are taught without very dear experience in a business such 

 as this. The capital required is small ; and, while providence and diligence 

 must be exercised, the pursuit is free, for the most part, from that exposure 

 to rough manners and coarse chaffering from which the sensitive shrink. 



The woman of small means and uncertain income can scarcely hire, much 

 less own, a lodging-place in the larger cities, and too often goes the down- 

 ward way of struggling poverty and desperate sin ; and they who would 

 keep the wolf from their door, and preserve a respectable position as work- 

 ers in the world, look to a quiet cottage in a country village as the safest 

 abode of feminine frugality. In such a spot, a few hundred dollars will 

 often purchase in fee-simple a residence and an acre or more of ground, 

 and the soil be made to furnish no small part of a comfortable subsistence. 



To those who are, or can be, thus situated, I would suggest the culture 

 of small fruits as a profitable, pleasant, and healthful occupation. 



Under the name of small fruits are generally included the strawberry, 

 raspberry, blackberry, currant, and gooseberry (some might practically add 

 the grape and cherry with good reasons ; but these I omit from this list). 

 These fruits, excepting the heavier labor of preparing the ground (all of them 

 requiring a deep and thorough preparation of the soil before planting), can 

 be easily managed by women ; the labor being of the dexterous, patient, and 

 neat sort, rather than the hurried, hard, and unclean. 



All of these fruits may be grown to advantage on any of the main lines 

 of railway leading into our great cities. Here in Illinois, for instance, the 

 Chicago branch and lower trunk of the Illinois Central carry fruit directly 

 from the grower in latitude 37°, where the strawberry ripens early in May, 

 to Chicago, whose market is bare of home-grown berries until late in June. 

 The Ohio and Mississippi Railway terminates in Cincinnati and St. Louis. 

 The Chicago and Alton connects St. Louis and Chicago. All these great 

 cities purchase, first for their own wants, and then to supply the areas of 

 surrounding country into which their railroads radiate ; thus furnishing 

 a constant and increasing demand for all fruits. 



For nearly all these fruits, too, there is an increasing local want. They 

 are passing from the rank of luxuries to that of the necessaries of life. 



