THE STRAWBERRY JULY 1906 



guests, the second brought many more, 

 and the third week the busy hostess 

 had to hire help to serve her guests. 

 Travelers, summer visitors and pleasure 

 parties from the near-by city dropped in 

 at all hours to partake of this unique treat, 

 and the hostess enjoyed the experience 

 quite as much as her guests. Several 

 times the big red automobile stopped at 

 the cottage, always with its four occu- 

 pants, to partake of a regular farmer's 

 dinner at "Strawberry Lodge" as they 

 christened the little cottage, and at the 

 end of the season Mrs. Lea found she 

 was $60 to the good simply from serving 

 her delicious strawberry short-cakes and 

 Jersey cream. 



The other streak of luck came one day 

 when she was serving a party of ladies 

 who had driven out from the city. She 

 had set on the dinner table a little fancy 

 pot of strawberry jam which she had made 

 for home use, and the ladies had tasted it 

 and were loud in their praise of the de- 

 licious confection. 



"I wish I could get you to make me a 

 winter supply; I would be willing to pay 

 well for it," one of the ladies said to the 

 hostess, and before she knew what had 

 happened Mrs. Lea had promised to make 

 each of the ladies a quantity of straw- 

 berry jam at a paying profit. 



Other orders followed quickly, as these 

 ladies spoke of their find to their friends, 

 and before the second season had closed 

 Mrs. Lea had established a business of 

 manufacturing strawberry jam for people 

 living in town, who hereafter were to be 

 her regular customers. 



When this second strawberry season 

 was over Mrs. Lea was a weary and a 

 happy woman. Beside the $60 from her 

 short-cake venture she found she had sold 

 $100 worth of strawberry jam, with un- 

 limited orders for next season, and this 

 was simply an aside from the great amount 

 of berries she had sold in the city markets. 



The third year she cut out the short- 

 cake business and gave all her time to the 

 maKing of her now famous jams, jellies 

 and marmalades. She had built up a 

 remunerative business along this line, as 

 well as a preferred trade in the city mar- 

 kets, by careful grading and packing of 

 her fruit. She could now command two 

 or three cents more for her berries than 

 her less careful competitors, and she had 

 reason to feel that she was a reasonably 

 successful business woman. 



But of course we cannot expect some- 

 thing for nothing in this world, and the 

 success that is really worth while does 

 not come without a deal of hard work, 

 and so there is no need to mention that 

 Mrs. Lea and her son put in many da\s 

 of hard, back-aching labor on their little 

 strawberry farm, but it was a pleasant, 

 healthful vocation, and they both enjoyed 

 the work, and rejoiced in the success that 

 crowned their efforts. 



In five years the mortgage was paid, 

 and the little home was all their own, and 



a pleasant and profitable business was 

 thoroughly established. Since then Mrs. 

 Lea has purchased a few more acres to 

 enlarge her berry farm, and has remodeled 

 Strawberry Lodge into a comfortable and 

 commodious home. Ray is now in col- 

 lege and his mother is able to hire help to 

 carry on her profitable little fruit farm. 



\Vhen people comment on her success 

 as a business woman, Mrs. Lea very 

 modestly declares that it is all due to 

 strawberries, and those who know her 

 best reply, "Yes, to strawberries and grit." 



Prof. Bailey on Selection 



FREQUENTLY the matter of seed 

 and plant selection is a stumbling 

 block in the way of horticulturists. 

 Just as in animal breeding the type some- 

 times is eclipsed by the beauty and fine 

 form of an individual, and the former set 

 aside by the breeder, only to bring him to 

 grief later on because he deserted the 

 real thing for a "sport," so do we see in 

 horticulture the splendid history of a cer- 

 tain line of plants set at naught by the 

 fine appearance, extra size, attractive 

 color, or what not, of an individual plant 

 that has no heredity and doubtless will 

 have no progeny similar to itself. 



Prof. L. H. Bailey of Cornell has 

 something to say on this subject that 

 goes to the heart of the problem, and 

 lays down general principles that should 

 be observed in all lines of plant breeding 

 or production. He says: "When se- 

 lecting seeds, remember that the char- 

 acter of the whole plant is more important 

 than the character of any one branch or 

 part of the plant, and the more uniform 

 the plant is in all its parts, the greater is 

 the likelihood that it will transmit i's 

 characters. If one is striving for larger 

 flowers, for instance, he will secure better 

 results if he choose seeds from plants 

 which bear large flowers throughout than 

 he will if he choose them from some one 

 large-flowering branch on a plant which 

 bears indifferent flowers on the remaining 

 branches, even though this given branch 

 produce much larger flowers than those 

 borne on the large-flowered plant. Small 

 potatoes from productive hills give a bet- 

 ter product than large potatoes from un- 

 productive hills. The practice of select- 

 ing large ears from a bin of corn, or large 

 melons from the grocer's wagon, is much 

 less efficient in producing large products 

 the following season than the practice of 

 going into the fields and selecting the 

 most uniformly large-fruited parents 

 would be. A very poor plant may oc- 

 casionally produce one or two very su- 

 perior fruits, but the seeds are more likely 

 to perpetuate the character of the plant 

 than of the fruits." 



Related somewhat to this discussion is 

 the remark of S. H. Warren, the veteran 

 strawberry breeder of Weston, Mass., 

 who said in The Strawberry for April 



Page 148 



Strawberries Keep Their 



Prklrvr '" ^^^ Wide-Mouthed, Sure- 

 IjUlUl Seal, Air-Tight 



ECONOMY JAR 



Fruit can't spoil in an 



Economy Jar 



OTRAWEERRIES never 

 Cj fude when cauued in 

 the Econuiuy Jar. 



The ELMinomy Jar is the 

 only jar inadethat is real- 

 ly hermetically, positive- 

 ly, air ti^ht. 



That is the reason straw- 

 berries canned in the 

 Ei.-onomy keep theircolor. 

 The air that filters 

 through a rnbber rin;^ or 

 S'*'-ps undfM- the edye of a 

 hiMvv, biinirlesonie (zlass 

 or ziiiL' t'lp, l.ileaches the 

 bt-'i ry , fudus it to a muddy, 

 furbiddinsr color and robs 

 it of its delicious, appetiz- 

 ini; flavor. 

 The Economy Jar is wide mouthed. The Economy 

 Jar seals itself with a tcold lacquered cap (acid proof) 

 tliiit is as cleanly and as sure a barrier against the air 

 and against bacteria as the crystal flint glass itself of 

 wliieh the Jar is made. 



Use the Economy Jar according to the simple direo- 

 tiiins and your strawberries will come onto the table as 

 phirap and luscious and red as the day they were 

 picked. 



S'^nd lis the name of your dealer and state if he sells 

 til-' Economy Jar, and we will send yovi free a booklet 

 of rccipt'S, containing tlie finest recipe for the caninng 

 lit' strawberries known to the culinary art. 



KERR GLASS MANUFACT'RINGCO. 



265 Hoyt St., Portland, Ore. 



Eastern Office, Dept. R, Philadelphia, Pa. 



(see page 81) that he had found the small 

 tip-ender plants better plant-makers than 

 the large and stocky plants. Sometimes 

 the strawberry grower is greatly disap- 

 pointed because his plants are small when 

 set out, but he will find that if his plants 

 come from a strain of heavy yielders, free 

 from insect and fungous enemies, the size 

 of the plant when it comes from the 

 breeding bed will have nothing to do 

 with its productiveness. 



Some Things Worth Knowing 



By James Charles 



AS many find it difficult to keep straw- 

 berries in glass cans from the fact 

 that the berries will rise to the top, 

 leaving practically all the juice below, 

 which is almost sure to cause fermenta- 

 tion, with a mold on the top at least that 

 ruins the flavor of the berries, I send you 

 herewith a way to obviate this difficulty. 

 Wash and prepare the berries as for 

 any other way for canning, placing enough 

 in the vessel to be sure of having enough 

 to fill, say, a quart can after they are 

 cooked. Then pour a teacup of granu- 

 lated sugar over them and cover vessel to 

 keep all the heat and steam in until the 

 sugar is dissolved, over a slow fire, or 

 with asbestos lid under vessel to prevent 

 scorching before the sugar is all dissolved. 

 Of course, the water must all be drained 

 off after washing the berries before putting 

 them on to cook. Then, just before tak- 

 ing them off to can, mix one-half tea- 

 spoonful of corn starch in just enough cold 



