82 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



think he fools away time and mone}' on a little trial plot of new 

 varieties, yet out of many failures comes one success thai pa3'8 for 

 all and places him way ahead of all competitors. 



With culture such as I recommend, strawberries should yield four 

 thousand quarts per acre, sell in your markets at about eight cents 

 per quart or a net profit of one hundred and fifty dollars per acre. 

 Raspberries about three thousand quarts per acre at ten cents per 

 quart will net about the same profit as strawberries. Blackberries 

 should give rather more quarts than the raspberries but selling for 

 less price, the profit is not so great. A good product of currants is 

 from fifteen hundred to two thousand quarts per acre, and the price 

 I suppose here about six or eight cents ; but as a field of currants 

 may be kept in fruiting for an indefinite number of years, it is one 

 of the most profitable of all small fruits, as the cost of culture is so 

 much less than an}' of the others ; strawberries having to be renewed 

 every two or three years, raspberries and blackberries every five or 

 six years for the best results, although there are many fields now 

 eight or ten years old that are yearly giving profitable results. 



So much for a hurried run over the field with an eye to producing 

 small fruits for market, but to get at bottom facts as to money in 

 small fruits the family garden is the place to begin and end if we are 

 looking for great results. Every farmer should and will have, when 

 he awakens to a full sense of the duty he owes to wife and loved 

 ones, a small fruit garden of half an acre or more in proportion to 

 the size of his family and his real interest in their welfare, for right 

 here he has a home market that will take at high prices every day in 

 the week, quarts upon quarts of the choicest products of his plants, 

 and the owner of town or city lot can in no way get so complete and 

 satisfactory returns for money and labor expended on it as from a 

 choice selection of small fruits. Here, of course many of the 

 methods recommended for field culture will have to be abandoned, 

 limited space making it necessary to plant more closely and to culti- 

 vate with hand implements. Strawberries should be given the most 

 sunny exposure, plants set about fifteen inches apart each way^ and 

 confined closely to hills which with liberal culture will grow large 

 enough to shade the whole ground and largely check weed growth. 



After midsummer a heavy mulching of some material that is most 

 readily obtainable may be put on, between the plants to keep down 

 the weeds and save the trouble of hoeing. This may be added, too, 

 for winter protection, then early the following spring uncover the 

 crowns of the plant only and the new growth will push up through. 



