156 STATE POMOLOUICAI< SOOrETY. 



rather than garden crops, aud they have cultivated after the manner 

 of farmers rather than as gardeners cultivate. Moreover, mauN' have- 

 located remote from town, subjecting themselves to quite a tax in 

 transporting their finits to market and in transporting their laborers* 

 to and fiom their labor. Let the farmer stick to farm crops and 

 they who are fitted by nature, tastes and training for horticultur- 

 ists grow small fruits. This, I think, is the natural order of things,- 

 and to this I believe we shall be obliged to come. 



(van it be proved that growing the same quantities of fruits oa 

 smaller areas of land will reduce their cost? 1 think it can. Let us 

 first take strawberries, the fruit in which the grower now sinks the 

 most money. We will say that 200 bushels per acre is a possible 

 crop of strawberries. I have known much larger crops grown, but 

 we will take 200 for our demonstration. I do not believe that the aver- 

 age yield, in the way they are generally grown, is over 60 bushels 

 per acre. Suppose that a grower of strawberries cultivates so as to 

 grow on one acre what he now grows on four, does any intelligent 

 horticulturist btlieve that the berries would cost so much per quart? 



To start with, the rent of three acres would be saved. At a low 

 estimate this would amount to $24 in the cost of 200 bushels. It 

 would neither require the same amount of manure nor labor to grow 

 200 bushels on one acre that it would on four acres — one-half of 

 each would be a liberal allowance. If 20' two-horse loads of barn- 

 yard manure to the acre is generally applied under the present sys- 

 tem, I think 40 loads would answer under the approved .system, thus 

 saving 40 loads, worth $40, in the 200 bushels. 



The cultivator of one acre would probably plow deeper and pulverize 

 much finer, expending about as much labor in preparing the one acre 

 for planting as the farmer does in preparing four acres. Only one- 

 fourth the number of plants, however, would be required. If we 

 plant three feet by eighteen inches it would take 9',680 plants to set 

 one acre — three times the number, or 29,040, would be saved. At 

 $2.50 per thousand, these would amount to $72.00. In planting the 

 strawberries, I suppose that about one-half the time would be ex- 

 pended on the one acre that is ordinarily devoted on large plantations to 

 four acres, and about half the labor in cirltivating, hoeing, weeding and 

 clipping runners. It is not practicable to make a ver^' close estimate 

 of the value of the labor saved, as different tracts of land differ so 

 much in the amount of labor required to keep them clean and mellow, 

 and the same grounds require so much more labor in a wet than in a. 



