Locations, Sites and Soils 5 



Transportation facilities. 



Whether a wholesale or personal market is sought it 

 is advantageous to be located where there are competitive 

 means of transportation, such as two railroads, or a steam- 

 boat line and a railroad. Competition is not only the 

 life of trade but also the chief incentive of freight rate 

 reductions. A well equipped steamboat is superior to a 

 refrigerator car. There is less jar, fewer odors and cinders, 

 and the fruit arrives fresher, even though the trip by boat 

 is longer than the trip by railroad. The advantage of a 

 location which has a good road to the shipping point is 

 obvious. The strawberry is very sensitive to jolts; 

 spring wagons and hard surface roads are needed to put 

 it at the shipping point in good condition. The closer 

 the field is to the shipping point, the better. 



Type of farming and labor. 



Since this crop occupies the land but a comparatively 

 short period, it readily lends itself to association with 

 other lines of husbandry. In most of the large shipping 

 centers the strawberry is grown as a main crop, but 

 other crops are grown to some extent, supplementary 

 or subsidiary to it. In the trucking sections of the 

 Atlantic coast, as at Norfolk, and in market-gardens 

 near large cities, the strawberry is but one spoke of a 

 wheel of succession cropping, and occupies the land but 

 one year or less. In other places, as on Vashon Island, 

 Washington, and in California, .the plants occupy the 

 land from three to five years, sometimes longer. In a 

 few places, as at Bowling Green, Kentucky, it is grown 

 as part of a general farm rotation. In the Hood River 

 and Yakima Valleys, Washington, the strawberry is 

 grown merely as a filler between rows of young fruit- 



