The Autobiography of a Strawberry Grower 



By Frank E. Beatty 



Chapter II — Which shows that Troubles and Toil Beset the March to Victory 



Y VACATION lasted for 

 several weeks, and most 

 of the time was spent in 

 working among my plants. 

 It was a beautiful sum- 

 mer, and though my mus- 

 cles were soft from long 

 disuse, the balmy air, the lovely scenery — 

 just the being at home — were so delight- 

 ful that the labor was actually restful, 

 while the confidence engendered by those 

 rapidly growing plants and the thought 

 that they meant a life of independence 

 amid the quiet and congenial surround- 

 ings of my own home nerved me to ex- 

 traordinary effort, effort that did not ap- 

 pear to tire me as I am sure such work 

 would have done under other circum- 

 stances. In fact, I then learned the great 

 lesson that congenial and improving work 

 is like play to the contented mind and 

 possesses nothing of the character of 

 drudgery. 



But such delight could not go on for- 

 ever, and one day came the expected order 

 from the house I was working for, and it 

 said, "Go to San Francisco at once." 



"Look at this," I said to my wife, with 

 no little excitement, "I've got to go clear 

 to the coast and leave those plants to take 

 care of themselves." 



"Well, I wouldn't go so far away," 

 said my wife. "Why don't you write to 

 the house and tell them you can't leave 

 the strawberries for so long a time.'" 



"Oh! that wouldn't do. So long as I 

 am working for somebody else, I've got 

 to obey the captain's orders. It isn't tor 

 me to say where I shall or shall not go. 

 But just wait till those berries are ripe 

 and I get to be my own boss, then I can 

 say, 'Well, Frank, all you've got to do 

 today is to take those berries to market 

 and let the other fellows do the work.' " 

 And my wife packed my grip and I 

 left on the 2:10 train next day for the 

 coast. Fortunately, the letter came just 

 as I had finished cultivating and hoeing 

 the plants, and they were in fine shape to 

 leave. I knew, however, that it would 

 not do to leave them entirely to themselves, 

 for, although I did not dare to tell my 

 uife, I had been advised that the trip was 

 to be of several months' duration. So I 

 employed a young fellow whose father 

 was a strawberry grower to look after the 

 patch in my absence. 



Dick took right hold of the work, and 

 everything ran along smoothly for a week 

 or so. But one day my wife noticed that 

 the boy was leaning rather heavily on his 

 hoe, looking off into space as though un- 

 determined as to his next move. Evident- 

 ly he soon decided, for when she next 

 looked out of the window the hoe was 

 sticking in the ground, and the loud shouts 



from the adjacent base-ball grounds indi- 

 cated all too clearly whither he had gone. 



Dick was a lover of base-ball, and the 

 temptation was too great for him to with- 

 stand. Since then he has become famous 

 as a skillful player and his name spells 

 success for the team with which he plays 

 at a big salary for the season. And al- 

 though he found it hard to stick to his 

 job in my patch at that time, he now is 

 part owner of a successful strawberry farm. 



Well, this neglect of the plants was a 

 serious matter, and my wife found it 

 necessary to take hold of the situation. 

 Her hardest task was to keep Dick away 

 from that base-ball park; but never a word 

 of her work and worry came to me. Her 



letters were full of good cheer, showing 

 only the bright side of things. 



August, September, October, and still 

 I was away on the Pacific coast, longing 

 for the time to come when I might return. 

 In mid-November that joy was mine, and 

 I was once more "toasting my shins" at 

 my own fireside. Surely, there never was 

 a truer word written than those of John 

 Howard Payne — "Be it e\er so humble 

 there's no place like home!" Those big 

 hotels where I had paid enough for one 

 day's entertainment to support my family 

 for a week — what were they when com- 

 pared to the coziness of my own home 

 and the companionship of wife and baby! 



It was late in the evening when I ar- 

 rived at the house, but after the first 

 greetings I took baby in my arms and all 

 three of us went out to the patch which 

 had been for all these months of absence 

 so largely in my mind as the hope and 

 promise of the future. I could not be- 

 lieve my own eyes. Was it possible this 

 was the patch I had left three months ago.'' 



I tried to hide my disappointment, but 



Page 241 



my wife's keen eyes noted the change of 

 expression. "Well, I'm not the only 

 runner in this patch," I said, hoping to 

 give an air of cheerfulness to the moment. 

 The plants certainly were thrifty enough; 

 but there appeared to be a reciprocal 

 arrangement between the different va- 

 rieties by which each was allowed to 

 occupy the other's territory. The Cres- 

 cents had moved in entire sections over 

 into the Warfield rows, and the Warfields 

 had taken possession of every vacancy 

 left by the Crescents. There was but 

 one thing to do, and that was to declare 

 war upon those riotous and intermeddling 

 fellows, and the next morning found me 

 vigorously at work in that field trying to 

 undo the mischief Dick's lack of exper- 

 ience and his love of play had caused. 



What that task meant for me, with my 

 hands soft from years of freedom from 

 manual labor you may imagine, and long 

 before noon of that first day my back felt 

 as if it would break in two. Only my 

 love for the work and my determination 

 to make a success of that strawberry en- 

 terprise kept me from throwing that hoe 

 over into the next field and "quitting the 

 job" forever. 



What worried me most was the inter- 

 mingling of the runners of the two va- 

 rieties. Like many another beginner I 

 was trying to have at the same time and 

 in the same place a propagating bed and 

 a fruiting bed, and this mixing of varieties 

 had blighted all my hopes along that line. 

 Noon came and with all my industiy and 

 sore hands and lame back only two rows 

 of that big field (it seemed to be vast 

 now^ had been cleaned out. The dinner 

 call found me tired, lame, and sore in 

 body and heart, and even the tempting 

 dinner spread before me could not lift me 

 out of that Slough of Despond. 



"^'ou've gone to work too vigorously 

 the first day," said my wife. "I'll come 

 out and help you after I get the dinner 

 work done up," she said, and sure enough, 

 about two o'clock she joined me and 

 worked faithfully with me until evening. 

 Her help in a material way was very 

 great, but to know that she was with me 

 in sympathy and interest lifted a burden 

 from my shoulders and gave new promise 

 of success to me. 



Two long and tedious weeks of weeding 

 and runner-pulling and I was done with 

 that feature of the work. The next opera- 

 tion was that of mulching, and when this 

 was done I was off on a series of trips, 

 lasting until about April I. I returned 

 home just in time to uncover the plants 

 and to prepare the ground for an in- 

 creased acreage, as I had fully determined 

 to at once set out two more acres that 

 spring. Some of the plants were taken 



