The Canadian Horticulturist 197 



SMALL FRUITS. 



STRAWBERRIES. 



BIG strawberry will always sell, however glutted the market 

 may be ; and at an advanced price. What you want above 

 all things is a quick sale. Time is worth money, and in the 

 picking season it is worth a great deal of money. Then for 

 picking you see that you can get along with half the pickers 

 if your berries average double size. I have picked a great 

 many quarts that did not take over thirty berries ; and I have seen quarts that 

 held a great deal nearer one hundred, and perhaps more, fair berries. 



There is always more risk of mashing or mussing when the berries are small. 

 My large berries go as quick as I can furnish them ; and ten times as many if I 

 had them. " No," answered our merchant, " I dont want any more straw- 

 berries ; but if you have any of those small pumpkins I want some ; half a dozen 

 crates if possible." 



The Sharpless revolutionized our notions about a good-sized berry. It is 

 one of the very best yet. Ontario I have tried to think is a different berry, but 

 to all purposes it is the same. It may be a seedling closely resembling the par- 

 ent. Haverland is another of the very large berries and a very great cropper, 

 too. Bubach No. 5 is quite as good, and, in flavor, better. Crawford is another 

 splendid berry, and Lida also, so far as I can judge from a poor test of it. 



Of berries not quite as large, I select Cumberland, Manchester, Pearl, Eureka, 

 as veiry fine. I believe one of the best of the new ones of very large size is 

 Saunders, and I shall also give Tippecanoe, Parker Earle and Middlefield a full 

 trial. 



It does not pay us to try a very large number of berries unless we care more 

 for experiment than for profit ; as I confess I have always done. Even then the 

 reports sent out by Crawford, Thompson, and some others, are so reliable that 

 we can leave them to sift the list very greatly. There really is, however, so 

 much good education from intelligent, careful tests, that I recommend every 

 planter to have his trial plot or trial garden. 



Here, besides strawberries should be a fair assortment of new raspberries, 

 grapes, etc., before large fields are planted with them, only perhaps to prove a 

 total loss. I have hastily planted such strawberries as Itaska, Bourbon, Vick, 

 Belmont, May King, Ohio, etc., and had to lose the ground for two years and 

 waste work on them. 



I believe that if any one does not care to experiment, but wishes a field of 

 superb reliable berries, and no mistake, that he cannot do better than plant 

 Bubach No. 5 and Haverland with Sharpless and Saunders for bi-sexual sorts to 



