105 



REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON STRAWBERRIES AND 



OTHER SMALL FRUITS. 



The Committee on Strawberries and other small fruits, regret 

 that they can report but two entries, viz : — Strawberry crop, by 

 Lewis B. Davis, of Amesbury. Blackberry crop, by Daniel 

 Stiles, of North Anclover. 



We visited the farm of Lewis B. Davis in the latter part of 

 June, too late to see his earl}' varieties in their prime, but we 

 were surprised to find so heavy a crop of Sharpless. We think 

 Mr. Davis raised a larger quantity of those berries on the same 

 amount of land than was ever grown in this vicinity. 



Our own experience with the Sharpless, is, that it is a very 

 shy bearer. I have tested them by the side of quite a number 

 of other varieties for nearly ten years and have never had more 

 than two, what I called, fair crops. This season they were 

 generally a complete failure. 



The land on which Mr. Davis' berries were raised, was a high 

 gravelly knoll, which in the extraordinary wet, cold season, 

 may account for his success, he having raised nearly 3200 boxes 

 per acre. While this is not a very large crop compared with 

 some which have been grown in former years, the Committee 

 thought it a good one for the season. 



I wish to say just here, a word in favor of that much abused 

 variety, the Wilson. In 1881 I grew on less than 95 rods, 6068 

 boxes of these berries. Many claim that the Wilson plants 

 have been grown so long that that old variety has run out. 



My plants were obtained of the originator twenty-eight 3 - ears 

 ago, and the plants I set this Spring were from the original 

 stock. The vines never looked better than they do this fall, 

 and the prospect is for a heavy crop next summer, if nothing 

 unusual befalls them. The old variety is again coming into 

 favor with the producer, the market man and the consumer, and 

 take it as a whole, it has not been excelled. The object of the 



