3O Success with Small Fruits. 



ton and butt ; but nature recognizes error every time, and quietly thwarts 

 those who try to wrong her, either willfully or blunderingly. 



Mr. Peter Henderson, who has been engaged practically in vegetable 

 gardening for over a quarter of a century, states, as a result of his expe- 

 rience, that capital, at the rate of $300 per acre, is required in starting a 

 "truck farm," and that the great majority fail who make the attempt with 

 less means. In my opinion, the fruit farmer would require capital in like 

 proportion ; for, while many of the small fruits can be grown with less prep- 

 aration of soil and outlay in manure, the returns come more slowly, since, 

 with the exception of strawberries, none of them yield a full crop until the 

 third or fourth year. I advise most urgently against the incurring of heavy 

 debts. Better begin with three acres than thirty, or three hundred, from 

 which a large sum of interest money must be obtained before a penny can 

 be used for other purposes. Anything can be raised from a farm easier 

 than a mortgage. 



Success depends very largely, also, on the character of the soil. If it 

 is so high and dry as to suffer severely from drouth two years out of three, 

 it cannot be made to pay except by irrigation ; if so low as to be wet, 

 rather than moist, the prospects are but little better. Those who are per- 

 manently settled must do their best with such land as they have, and in a 

 later chapter I shall suggest how differing soils should be managed. To 

 those who can still choose their location, I would recommend a deep mel- 

 low loam, with a rather compact subsoil moist, but capable of thorough 

 drainage. Diversity of soil and exposure offer peculiar advantages also. 

 Some fruits thrive best in a stiff clay, others in sandy upland. Early 

 varieties ripen earlier on a sunny slope, while a late kind is rendered later 

 on a northern hill-side, or in the partial shade of a grove. In treating each 

 fruit and variety, I shall try to indicate the soils and exposures to which 

 they are best adapted. 



Profits. The reader will naturally wish for some definite statements of 

 the profits of fruit farming ; but I almost hesitate to comply with this desire. 

 A gentleman wrote to me that he sold from an acre of Cuthbert raspber- 

 ries $800 worth of fruit. In view of this fact, not a few will sit down and 

 begin to figure "If one acre yielded $800, ten acres would produce $8,000; 

 twenty acres $16,000, &c. Multitudes have been led into trouble by this 

 kind of reasoning. The capacity of an engine with a given motor power 

 can be measured, and certain and unvarying results predicted ; but who can 

 measure the resources of an acre through varying seasons and under differ- 

 ing culture, or foretell the price of the crops? In estimating future profits, 

 we can only approximate ; and the following records are given merely to 



