Strawberries - 223 



Strawberries 



The strawberry is the most important of all of the small 

 fruits, and it readily finds a place in the garden of the 

 farmer, in the dooryard of the. city man and in great plan- 

 tations of the specialist. It is the one fruit used more ex- 

 tensively than any other to plant among trees in the young 

 orchards, and which the grower can depend on to make a 

 profit while the young trees are coming into bearing. 



The strawberry is a cosmopolitan fruit, and is found 

 under cultivation in great plantations from the Gulf of 

 Mexico to northern Canada and from the Atlantic ocean to 

 the Pacific coast. So widely distributed, in fact, are the 

 commercial plantations of this delicious fruit that it cannot 

 be said to be confined to certain "belts" of profitable com- 

 mercial production, as can the apple, peach or prune. This 

 character, which permits this wide adaptation, comes pos- 

 sibly from the fact that its parentage is among almost a 

 dozen wild species, coming from all parts of the world. 

 This fact, too, has made it possible to have varieties which 

 are adapted to widely differing conditions and filling a va- 

 riety of needs. One may find varieties producing firm ber- 

 ries that will stand shipments of some thousands of miles; 

 others will be sweet and melting, and suited only to home 

 markets. Other varieties will come early, and still others 

 that come late. New forms are being created at the pres- 

 ent time which give good promise of producing fruit 

 throughout the entire summer, while still other kinds are 

 being developed for forcing in the greenhouse for the mid- 

 winter markets. 



As a commercial fruit the strawberry is rapidly growing 

 in importance, and in practically every state there are now 

 large districts where this fruit is the leading horticultural 

 crop, and from which train loads of the fruit are shipped 

 each season. This is a development of recent years, and 

 has been increased by the perfection of methods of ship- 

 ping fruits under refrigeration, and by the development of 

 the large commercial orcharding operations. While many 

 thousands of acres are now devoted to strawberry produc- 

 tion the industry dates no farther back than about 1835, 



