68 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



who was stauclmg outside iu his shirt sleeves, slapped me oa the shoulder 

 and said, "I have sold six bushels of stiawberries to-day ! What do j'ou 

 think of that?" I thought it was wonderful, and I hoped the time would 

 come when I could grow two or three bushels. There were at that time 

 in the county but two commercial strawberry growers, and they both 

 brought their fruit there for him to sell. A few years ago I took a 

 spe ial census, and T found more than 200 establishments in Hartford 

 selling beri"ies. and they are selling over 600 bushels a day. An increase 

 from six bushels to six hundred in a short lifetime. I was talking with 

 Mr. J. E. Eddy at our last pomological meeting two weeks ago, and he 

 said they were consuming 1,000 bushels a day in the height of the season. 

 Just think of that! An increase from six bushels a day to 1,000 in the 

 last thirtj--five years, and the population now is less than 60,000. An 

 increase of thirty or forty per cent in population and 1,000 per cent in 

 the consumption of berries. And that increased consumption is going on 

 everywhere. (Since I have been in the business I have heard about its 

 being overdone, and the market is occasionally overstocked, but it is with 

 poor goods. There is never an over supplj^ of the best goods. Of course 

 you could all go to raising strawberries and overstock the market here. 

 You have to find a market that wants the goods and the time it wants 

 them, and then you will get your money back, there is no questiou 

 about it. 



I cannot come here and tell you just what varieties to plant and just 

 what soil to plant them on. You must work out those problems for 

 yourselves. Those of you who are growing strawberries here can tell 

 the farmers about that better than I can. I can give you a few hints, 

 and I do want to stimulate your thought in the line of these choicest of 

 fruits. I have in mind that possibly currants would be a verj' profitable 

 crop here. I have friends iu Xova Scotia who began planting currants 

 for the Boston markets a few years ago. They planted a few acres at 

 first, and within the past year they have said they intended to enlarge 

 their operations, one to about ten acres and the other to about eighty 

 acres. They say they are very profitable, and I believe you here would 

 find the currant a very profitable crop. It is hardy, very productive aud 

 long lived. You could not get half as much from an acre as from an 

 acre of strawberries, but it will not cost nearly as much to produce them. 

 The cost of production is very small as compared with strawberries. 

 They should be planted in check rows, perhaps five or six feet apart each 

 ■way. The bushes when a year old need cultivating six or eight or ten 

 times during the season, the more the better. They will require two 

 years' growth before they will come into bearing at all. The first year 

 they might l)e planted between potatoes, and the next year given the full 

 use of the ground. The third year they will come into moderate bearing 

 and the fourth year into full bearing. And then if fed, cultivated and 

 judiciously pruned they will bear almost indefinitely. 



A good currant crop may be kept up for fifteen or twenty years and 

 sometimes more, though if forced to their utmost you will get the best 



