130 Success with Small Fruits. 



morphosed into a paymaster, with a huge bag of coin, which he rapidly 

 exchanged for the strawberry tickets. Our last glimpse of the pickers, 

 who had streamed out of the city in the gray dawn, left them in a long 

 line, close as herrings in a box, pressing toward the window, from which 

 came faintly the chink of silver. 



As night at last closed about us, we realized the difference between a 

 strawberry farm and a strawberry bed, or " patch," as country people say. 

 Here was a large and well-developed business, which proved the presence 

 of no small degree of brain power and energy; and our thoughts naturally 

 turned to the proprietor and the methods by which he achieved success. 



J. R. Young, Jr., is a veteran in strawberry culture, although but 

 twenty-nine years of age. Mr. Young, Sr., was a Presbyterian clergyman 

 who always had a leaning toward man's primal calling. When his son 

 was a little boy, he was preaching at Plattsburgh, New York, and to his 

 labors in the spiritual vineyard joined the care of a garden that was the 

 pride of the town. Mr. Young, Jr., admits that he hated weeding and 

 working among strawberries as much as any other boy, until he was 

 given a share in the crop, and permitted to send a few crates to Montreal. 

 He had seen but nine years when he shipped his first berries to market, 

 and every summer since, from several widely separated localities and 

 with many and varied experiences, he has sent to northern cities increas- 

 ing quantities of his favorite fruit. When but fifteen years of age he had 

 the entire charge, during the long season, of three hundred " hands," and 

 the large majority of them were Irish women and children. After 

 considerable experience in strawberry farming in northern and southern 

 New York and in New Jersey, his father induced him to settle at Norfolk, 

 Virginia, and hither he came about ten years ago. Now he has under 

 his control a farm of 440 acres, 150 of which are to-day covered with 

 bearing strawberry plants. In addition, he has set out this spring over 

 two million more plants, which will occupy another hundred acres, so 

 that in 1880 he will have 250 acres that must be picked over almost 

 daily. 



Mr. Young prefers spring planting in operations upon a large scale. 

 Such a choice is very natural in this latitude, for they can begin setting 

 the first of February and continue until the middle of April. Therefore, 

 nine-tenths of the plants grown in this region are set out in spring. But 

 at Charleston and farther south, they reverse this practice, and, with few 

 exceptions, plant in the summer and fall, beginning as early as July on 

 some places, and continuing well into December. 



I must also state that the finest new plantation that I saw on Mr. 

 Young's place was a field of Seth Boydens set out in September. 



