THE STRAWBERRY 



A MONTHLY MAGAZINE DEVOTED TO THE INTERESTS 

 OF STRAWBERRY PRODUCTION IN ALL ITS BRANCHES 



Volume I No. 4 



Three Rivers, Mich., April, 1906 



$1.00 a Year 



ARGUE against it as we may, the fact remains tliat with 

 the increasing tendency to specialization in agricul- 

 ture there is in some sections of the country a dis- 

 position to give up even the family garden on the 

 farm. And this is not so strange when we consider the grow- 

 ing scarcity of farm labor. However, we must take things as 

 they are, and the purpose of this article is to suggest that in 



ginning to enjoy the rich things of earth that come to the farm as 

 well as to the city home. It takes no prophet to see that our 

 sons are to have them at their full. 



Consider the work of the Department of Agriculture, of the 

 Experiment Stations and the Agricultural Colleges in relation 

 to the art and science of soil culture and animal husbandry. 

 None may consider it fully, for the achievements are too vast 



every farming community some good strawberry grower might and too complex for one mind to grasp it all. Consider the 

 find a home market among his farmer neighbors if he set about material and moral significance of rural-mail delivery. Con- 

 it to grow the sort of fruit those neighbors wish to have served sider what it means that tiiousands upon thousands of miles of 



them, and always delivers fresh, sweet 

 and inviting berries. This hint is worthy 

 of consideration by our friends who have 

 a small acreage in a community where 

 for the most part farming is done on an 

 extensive scale. 



Take it in the corn-belt, where farm- 

 ers are engaged "from early morn till 

 dewy eve" in running the machinery of 

 their extensive plantations — machinery ro 

 expensive that they cannot afford to let it 

 lie idle, and crops so sensitive to condi- 

 tions that neglect at a particular moment 

 may mean the loss of thousands. How 

 can they afford the time to look after the 

 garden patchi^ This is what they ask 

 you when you talk to them of their neg- 

 lect — and how can you answer it.'' 



And the dairyman, busy with the 

 thousand details that go with the modern 

 dairy, with its machinery, its costly cows, 

 its sanitary requirements and its daily 

 commercial calls. It isn't much like it 

 used to be when every farm-wife made 

 her own butter and something over for 

 the people of the nearby town. The 

 towns have grown into cities, the cities 

 1 



AFTER examining carefully and 

 with much delight the January 

 and February numbers of The Straw- 

 berry, I am perfectly willing heartily 

 to endorse all the good things which 

 I had heard about the magazine. It 

 is a handsome, a beautiful, thing. 

 Mechanically it seems beyond criti- 

 cism. <IYou also have hit upon the 

 inspirational way of putting things. 

 I like that. It is important that the 

 reader be inspired and quickened as 

 well as instructed and entertained. 

 Words hot from the heart of a practi- 

 cal man who loves his work are sure 

 to help all who read or hear them. 

 tJlEven if I were quite resourceful 

 as a publisher or editor, i do not be- 

 lieve I could offer you any sugges- 

 tion that would make The Straw- 

 berry better than it is. But like a 

 Stradivarius v'olin, it doubtless will 

 grow better as it ages; at any rate, 

 I shall hope to see it grow larger and 

 deservedly prosperous. 



Dewitt C. Wing. 



Chic"go, Feb. 27, 1906. 

 Mr. Wing is on the staff of the Breeder's Gazette 



electric railway now penetrate the rural 

 districts of our land. Consider what it 

 means that there now are entire libraries 

 composed of agricultural works that appeal 

 to the most practical of farmers and that 

 are aiding to revolutionize and improve 

 agricultural methods and life in the farm 

 home. Consider the nature of the mod- 

 ern agricultural magazine, with its artis- 

 tic and suggestive and helpful illustrations 

 and articles on timely themes of highest 

 practical interest. 



"It is a condition, not a theory, that 

 confronts us," as our only liv.ng ex-pres- 

 ident was wont to say. What shall we 

 do with it.? Why, meet it, of course. If 

 it be the law of socio-economics, and it 

 ap'iears to be, that specialization is a mark 

 of prog "ss — is of itself progress — it were 

 worse tl an idle to stand in its way. And 

 let us not only refrain from interfering 

 with the onward and upward march of 

 things, but let us join the noble procession 

 and give to the movement our very best 

 brain and brawn, confident that if we do 

 so we shall ourselves advance. 



W. G. Moore, of Quincy, Mich., in 



nto metropolises, and these aggregations of urban folk cry for the Rural Advocate says: "Farmers now-a-days are so busy, 

 milk and cream and butter and egg:-, not by the wagonload, owing to the scarcity 6f help, that they had rather buy garden 

 but by the trainload daily. truck than try to raise it. Some of them drive several miles to 

 None should be more glad to be in this progressive march buy of me." Mr. Moore's case is not an isolated one. The 

 than the farmer. None other has had so many advantages social and industrial changes of which we have spoken is pro- 

 come to him in one way and another during the last quarter of ducing many instances of the sort to which he refers. Mr. 

 a century as has the farmer. Invention, discovery, research; Moore is doing well to encourage his neighbors to increase their 

 science, art and literature; government itself— all have combined calls upon him by giving them good service, developing a taste 

 to aid the advance to higher things and broader living for the for better things and a demand for lots of them, and making it 



farmer. Isolated from their neighbors by miles of forest or 

 broad sweep of prairie; far from society's charm and uplift, our 

 fathers struggled with primary things to bring order out of chaos 

 and create productive homes where the wilderness had for ages 

 claimed evervthing as its own. We of this generation are be- 



possible for the busy farmer to look after his own specialties 

 and at the same time enjoy some of the pleasures demanded by 

 his social nature. And there is no other part of his nature 

 which the farmer should more sedulously cultivate than his 

 social side. We repeat, let us make the best of this condition, 



OOPYBiaHT, IDOS. •» T"" ""ll-OaO •O.LI.MINO OO. 



