222 Town and Country. 



farming, he should go where land is to be had at low rates. If his taste 

 should lead him to prefer the fruit-culture, he should hug the avenues that 

 lead directly to the great markets. In these crowded cities, though hun- 

 dreds may be daily driven out to seek homes in the country, yet thousands 

 remain there whom the severest monetary stricture never reaches. They 

 know of hard times only by hearsay. Such always have money wherewith 

 to gratify their appetites for whatever luxuries the market may present. 

 They keep the opera in full play, no matter how many hungry thousands 

 may be around them. At their grand parties, the floral decorations alone 

 cost more than the value of a small farm. The winter strawberries on 

 their tables cost ten dollars a quart. On these avenues he may buy land 

 with safety. Population is crowding into the regions which they traverse. 

 Unless it has been unduly inflated by speculation, such land must annually 

 become more valuable. 



The first charge on agricultural products is for transportation to market. 

 Hence whatever one may have to sell, the nearer he may be to it, the less 

 will be the charge. This is one reason why the great market-gardeners 

 plant themselves so near the cities. Their products being bulky, and less 

 valuable than fruit, cannot so well afford a high charge for freight. All 

 these essential points must be considered by those who are about leaving 

 the city, as well as by others who are changing from one style of farming 

 to another. The producer of berries on a large scale must locate where 

 the population is sufficient to furnish hands to pick the fruit in season. 

 Strangers to New-Jersey horticulture often wonder how we find pickers 

 enough to gather the great quantities of berries which are cultivated among 

 us. But the pickers seem to have multiplied as the berry-culture has 

 extended, until the two branches of a really great trade now work in per- 

 fect harmony. Wh^^n the fruit ripens, an army of pickers seems to spring 

 up out of the ground. Every town and village sends its swarms of women 

 and children into the strawberry-field. The country schoolhouses are 

 abandoned, that the children may share in the profits of the fruit-harvest. 

 An ordinarily smart girl will pick a hundred quarts per day, and go home 

 long before night fall with two dollars in her pocket. Such pay for this 

 class of help will empty every schoolhouse in the country. Then follow the 

 raspberry and blackberry, thus giving long and profitable employment to 



