STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETT. 71 



upon almost as a necessity. If this be true of celen% what a vastly 

 greater demand is certain to spring up for evaporated raspberries. 

 Gregg's Black Cap is found to be the best for this purpose. It con- 

 tains less water, and its color is favorable in many aspects. I have 

 had no actual experience in this branch of fruit culture. I have been 

 giving simply ra\' opinion. I wish the business might be investi- 

 gated, written up, talked up, and inaugurated in Maine, if there is 

 any mone}- in it. 



STRAWBERRIES. 



A friend of mine, a physician, has three hens. They are of a good 

 breed, young, well fed, and well cared for. The gross returns which 

 my friend receives from those hens are enormtnis when compared 

 with the outlay. He knows just about as much about the poultry 

 business as a science, as I know about the cerebro spinal meningitis, 

 yet it is his real desire to give up his practice and enjoy an income 

 of S3, 000 a year from 1,000 hens. If one doubts his ability to make 

 that amount he will triumphantl}' call 3-our attention to his three hens 

 and what the}' are doing. The strawberrv business is somewhat like 

 the poultry business in this particular; it is verv easy to do a 

 small business, but the men or women are few wlio can make a pecu- 

 niary success of a large business in either line. I know a lady whose 

 health required out-door work, who sold $49.77 worth of straw- 

 berries in one year, from six square rods of land. Hers is not an 

 exceptional case by any means. A showing even better maj' be 

 made, under the best possible conditions and with the best possible 

 care. 



And this is the whole sum, science and philosophv of the matter of 

 strawberrv raising. My first attempts were the most successful, 

 parti}- because I happened to start under favorable conditions as to 

 soil, variety, &c. ; mainly, because I gave them good cultivation. 

 Since then I have scored several magnificent failures, and to-daj^ I 

 know less of strawberry culture, in my own estimation, than at any 

 other period of my life. I can endorse Josh Billings, who said, "It is 

 better for a man not to know quite so much, than it is to know so much 

 that isn't so." There are so many points to be considered, so many 

 problems to be solved, and so many successes on record, achieved 

 under widely different culture, soil, climatic influences, &c., that 

 nothing less than a strawberry growers' convention can grapple and 

 elucidate all these matters. I can at best but briefly glance at a 

 few points, and at the most what I have to sa}- should be considered 



