THE STRAWBERRY 



A MONTHLY MAGAZINE DEVOTED TO THE INTERESTS 

 OF STRAWBERRY PRODUCTION IN ALL ITS BRANCHES 



Volume II No. 9 



Three Rivers, Mich., September, 1907 



$1.00 a Year 



MEN WANTED! Tliat is an old cry, but never 

 was it more insistently and emphatically uttered 

 than now. Men for the shops, men for the farms, 

 men for the great enterprises like the Panama canal 

 and the great water system that our metropolis is to construct 

 for its millions — a gigantic canal that will carry the cold and 

 sweet and healthful waters of the Catskills down to the thirsty 

 throats of Gotham. So great is the cry for men that we some- 

 times wonder what has become of them, and why it is that so 

 few are at hand to take advantage of the opportunities opening 

 up to them. We read that there are in the state of New York 

 alone 12,000 aban- 

 doned farms, and we 

 all know that New 

 England in some of 

 its parts presents a 

 scene of desolation 

 and impoverishment, 

 with its deserted 

 farm houses and 

 abandoned lands. 

 Men are wanted 

 everywhere. 



Next month there 

 is to be held at Syra- 

 cuse, New York, a 

 con\ention of public- 

 spirited folk whose 

 purpose it is to de- 

 vise ways and means 

 to re-people the de- 

 serted farmsteads of 

 the East and bring 

 back to productivity 



the lands once so fertile, so ruthlessly robbed, and now so nee 

 essary to the prosperity of the country. Whether this conven 

 tion will accomplish much m these directions will depend in large George Washington said it was, "the noblest occupation of 

 part upon the character and purpose of the men composing it. man." To-day agriculture is prosperous, the man who farms 

 But every citizen who thinks of the future of his country and well, or grows good fruit, or raises fine stock, or sends fresh eggs 

 who realizes the economic loss such conditions as these aban- and good butter and rich milk to market, finds instant sale for all 

 doned farms signify will hope that the convention may be the and more than he can produce of these desirable things. More 

 signal for a movement all along the line that shall take thousands than that, the "mossback" and the "hayseed" are become cari- 

 and hundreds of thousands of good people out of the cities and catures of a time gone by. Once in a while we see a reminder 

 towns and establish them in homes of their own upon the land, of these spectres of the past, but in the main the farmer is taking 



Here is where we particularly want men, and it is under such his rightful place among his fellows — that of leadership, 

 conditions that we are sure to develop the very best order of And the farm.' It is coming to be the most attractive place 



men. And if the intelligent citizenship of the country only real- in the world. Situated upon a trolley line, with telephone con- 

 ized how great is the opportunity that is represented by the con- necting with the outer world, it is of easy access to the town 

 ditions that are to be found in New England and New "^'ork and without the disagreeable features of the town. While in many 

 in portions even of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Michigan, there of the less important cities of the country the citizen still must 

 would be no need of a convention to start the homeless men of go to the postoffice for his mail, the farmer has his mail delivered 



AN IDEAL MOTHER PLANT 



the country back to the land. We may speculate upon the 

 causes that led to the abandonment of many farms in the coun- 

 try. East and West, and we may discover and name many of 

 them, but among the most potent was the fact that for a long 

 period of time farming in this country was carried forward at so 

 small a profit to the farmer as to discourage him, and the social 

 life of the farm was so barren of pleasure that there was nothing 

 to attract him to it. With both profit and pleasure absent it is 

 not strange that the younger generation declined to follow in the 

 footstep? of their parents, and the so-called abandoned farms 

 were, in many instances, not deserted by the men who actually 



had "farmed" them, 

 but when these 

 passed out of life 

 their children sim- 

 ply refused longer to 

 remain. 



Speaking broadly, 

 this desertion of the 

 farm was accom- 

 plished before the 

 new and brighter 

 day that has come 

 to agriculture since 

 the agricultural col- 

 lege and experiment 

 station were created 

 and the nation and 

 the several states, 

 through their depart- 

 ments of agriculture 

 and societies agri- 

 cultural, horticultur- 

 al, livestock, and 

 others, were created and began to show the people that agricul- 

 ture — the tilling of the soil and the breeding of animals — was, as 



