STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 89 



keeps up well and is a valuable market berry and should be in ever}' 

 fruit garden. It compares with the Cuthbert in its vigorous growth 

 and general good qualities. 



Mr. Atherton. It would please me very much to have a nice 

 small fruit garden. I think I could easily devote half an acre to 

 one, but the difficulty would be to get the time in the summer when 

 my other work is so pressing, and the expense that would be incurred 

 in setting out and caring for a half acre of the different varieties of 

 small fruits. I do not know how much the expense would be, but 

 nearly- every farmer is pretty busy in the spring. 



Mr. Hale. Busy in doing what? 



Mr. Atherton. Attending to our field crops ; we have to get the 

 money out of them to pay our taxes. 



Mr. Hale. A half acre of small fruits will bring in enough 

 money to pay one hired man all summer and it will not take half his 

 time to attend to the half acre. As to the expense of starting I 

 would advise a man who hasn't any small fruit garden to invest two 

 or three dollars this coming spring in a few plants and set them out 

 in good rich soil and propagate his own stock for the next year. 

 Plants sufficient to set a half acre would cost fifteen or twenty or 

 twenty- five dollars according to the selection of varieties. But by 

 investing three or four dollars in the desired varieties of plants this 

 spring he could propagate his own stock and the following year set 

 out his half acre and then when he needed to renew it he could do 

 so without expense. 



Mr. Atherton. I did not have reference simply to the expense 

 of purchasing the plants ; but time is money and this fruit garden 

 would require time from the other farm work. 



Mr. Hale. The actual profit by using the fruit in your own 

 family in place of more expensive kinds of food, I think we may set 

 at $100 for the half acre. Are you growing any crops on your 

 farm that are netting you $200 per acre profit? 



Mr. Atherton. No. 



Mr. Hale. Then why talk about the cost of a fruit garden. It 

 is the most profitable thing you can put on to 3'our farm. After 

 the ground is plowed and prepared I would agree to set out the 

 plants for half an acre in a day and call it fun. And after they are 

 set out in rows as they should be, the old horse and cultivator will 

 do the most of the work. 



