Ten Acres Enough* 



(Continued from December number, Page 207) 



MY PEACH-ORCHARD was no sooner finished 

 than I filled each row with raspberries, setting 

 the roots two feet apart in the rows. This enabled me 

 to get seven roots in between every two trees, or 

 5,656 in all. This was equivalent to nearly two 

 acres wholly planted with raspberries according to 

 the usual plan. They would go on growing without 

 injuring tie peach trees, or being injured by them; 

 and when the latter should reach their full growth, 

 their shade would be highly beneficial to the rasp- 

 berries, as they thrive better and bear more freely 

 when half protected from the burning sun. The 

 tops were cut off within a few inches of the ground 

 thus preventing any excessive draft upon the newly 

 planted roots. No staking up was needed. These 

 roots cost me six dollars per thousand, or thirty- 

 four dollars for the lot, and were the ordinary Red 

 Antwerp. The season proving showery, they grew 

 finely. Some few died, but my general luck was 

 very satisfactory. I planted the whole lot in three 

 days with my own hands. 



I am sure the growth of my raspberries was owing, 

 in a great degree, to the deep plowing the land 

 had received. The soil they delight in is one com- 

 bining richness, depth, and moisture. It is only 

 from such that a full crop may be expected every 

 season. The roots must have abundance of elbow- 

 room to run down and suck up moisture from the 

 abundant reservoir which exists below. Deep 

 plowing will save them from the effects of dry 

 weather, which otherwise will blast the grower's 

 hopes, giving him a small berry, shrivelled up from 

 want of moisture, instead of one of ample size, rich 

 and juicy. Hence irrigation has been known to 

 double the size of raspberries, as well as doubling 

 the growth of the canes in a single season. Mulch- 

 ing also is a capital thing. One row so treated, by 

 way of experiment, showed a marked improvement 

 over all the others, besides keeping down the weeds. 



Raspberries for Market 



AS A market fruit the raspberry stands on the 

 same fist with the best, and I am satisfied that 

 one cannot produce too much. For this purpose I 

 consider the Red Antwerp most admirably adapted. 

 There are twenty other varieties, some of which are 

 probably quite as valuable, but I was unwilling 

 to have my attention divided among many sorts. 

 One really good berry was enough for me. Some of 

 my neighbors have as much as ten acres in this fruit, 

 from which they realize prodigious profits. Like 

 all the smaller fruits, it yields a quick return to an 

 industrious and painstaking cultivator. 



Immediately on getting my raspberries in, I went 

 twice over the six acres with the cultivator, stirring 

 up the ground some four inches deep, as it had been 

 a good deal trampled down by our planting oper- 

 ations. This I did myself with a thirty-dollar horse 

 which I had recently bought. Having eighteen 

 feet between two rows of peach-trees, I divided 

 this space into five rows for strawberries, giving me 

 very nearly three feet between each row. In these 

 rows I set the strawberry plants, one foot apart, 

 making about 10,000 plants per acre, allowing for 

 the headlands. I bought the whole 60,000 required 

 for S2 per thousand, making Si 20. This was below 

 the market price. 



In planting these I got three of the children to 

 help me, and though it was more tiresome work 

 than the}' had ever been accustomed to, yet they 

 stood bravely up to it. It occupied us a whole week 

 to set out these plants, for we were all new hands 

 at the business. But the work was carefully done, 

 and a shower coming on just as we had finished, 

 settled the earth nicely to the roots, and I do not 

 think more than two hundred of them died. I 

 intended to put a pinch of guano compost or a hand- 



* Copyright, 1905, by Consolidated Retail Booksellers. 



ful of poudrette into each hill, but thought I could 

 not afford it, and so let them go, trusting to being 

 able to give them a dressing of some kind of manure 

 the following spring. I much regretted this omis- 

 sion, as I was fully aware of the great value of the 

 best strawberries, and plenty of them. 



A Strawberry Deal 



T FORGOT to say that I had planted Wilson's 

 A Albany Seedling. This was the berry for which 

 we had been compelled to pay such high prices 

 while living in the city. Everybody testified to its 

 being the most profuse bearer, while its great size 

 and handsome shape made it eagerly sought after in 

 the market. It was admitted, all things considered, 

 to be the best market berry then known. My 

 experience has confirmed this. True, it is a little 

 tarter than most other varieties, and therefore 

 requires more sugar to make it palatable. 



The reader may have been all this time watching 

 the condition of nry purse. But he has not been so 

 observant as myself. These plants did not cost me 

 cash. I had intended to plant an acre or two to 

 begin with. But after buying my peachtrees and 

 raspberries, the nurseryman inquired if I did not 

 intend to plant strawberries also, as he had a very 

 large quantity which he would sell cheap, which 

 seemed to imply that he found a difficulty in dis- 

 posing of them. Besides, the selling season was 

 pretty nearly over. I therefore fought shy, and 

 merely inquired his terms. This led to a long 

 colloquy between us, in the course of which I held 

 off just in proportion as he became urgent. At 

 last, believing that I was not disposed to buy, 

 although I went there for that very purpose, he 

 offered to sell me 60,000 plants for Si 20, and to 

 take his money out of the proceeds of my first crop. 

 This offer I considered fair enough, much better 

 than I expected; and after having distinctly agreed 

 that he should depend upon the crop, and not on me, 

 for payment, and that if the coming season yielded 

 nothing he should wait for the following one, I con- 

 fessed to him that his persuasions had overcome me, 

 and consented to the bargain. 



In other words, I did not run in debt — I saved 

 just that much of my capital, and could make 

 a magnificent beginning with our favorite fruit. 

 As I was leaving this liberal man, he observed to me: 



"Well, I am glad you have taken this lot, as 

 I was intending to plow them in to-morrow." 



"How is that?" I inquired, not exactly under- 

 standing his meaning. 



"Oh," said he, "I have so many now that I must 

 have the ground for other purposes, and so meant 

 to plow them under if you had not bought them." 



This was an entirely new wrinkle to me. Though 

 a capital bargain for me, yet it was a still better 

 one for him. What he was to receive was abso- 

 lutely so much clear gain. But then, after all that 

 has been said and written, is it not a truth that 

 cannot be disputed, that no bargain can be pro- 

 nounced a good one unless all the parties to it 

 are in some way benefited? 



Here, now, were six acres of ground pretty well 

 crowded up, at least on paper. But the strawberries 

 would never grow higher than six inches; the rasp- 



249 



berries would be kept down to three or four feet, 

 while the peaches would overtop all. Each would 

 be certain to keep out of the other's way. Then 

 look at the succession. The strawberries would 

 be in market first, the raspberries would follow, 

 and then the peaches, for of the latter I had planted 

 the earlier sorts; so that, unlike a farm devoted 

 wholly to the raising of grain, which comes into 

 market only once a year, I should have one cash- 

 producing crop succeeding another during most 

 of the summer. On the remaining three acres 

 I meant to raise something which would bring 

 money in the autumn. 



Blackberries — A Remarkable Coincidence 



IN THE course of my agricultural reading for some 

 years previous to coming into the country, I had 

 noticed great things said of a new blackberry which 

 had been discovered in the State of New York. 

 It was represented as growing twenty feet high, 

 and as bearing berries nearly as large as a walnut, 

 which melted on the tongue with a lusciousness to 

 which the softest ice-cream was a mere circum- 

 stance, while the fruit was said to be strung upon 

 its branches like onions on a rope. A single bush 

 would supply a large family with fruit! I was 

 amazed at the extravagant accounts given of its 

 unexampled productiveness and matchless flavor. 



I followed it — in the papers — for a long time. 

 At last I saw it stated that the rare plant could not 

 be propagated from the seed, but only from suckers, 

 and therefore very slowly. Of course it could not 

 be afforded for less than a dollar apiece! It would 

 be unreasonable to look for blackberries for less! 

 It struck me that the superior flavor claimed for it 

 must be a little of the silvery order — that in 

 berries bought at that price, a touch might be 

 detected even of the most auriferous fragrance. 

 Still, I was an amateur — in a small way. I re- 

 joiced in a city garden which would readily accommo- 

 date a hundred of this extraordinary berry, 

 especially as it was said to do better and bear 

 more fruit, when cut down to four feet, instead of 

 being allowed to grow to a height of twenty. 



It thus seemed to be made for such miniature 

 gardeners as myself. One generous advertiser of- 

 fered to send six roots by mail for five dollars, 

 provided ten red stamps were inclosed with the 

 money. I had never before heard of blackberries 

 being sent by mail; but the whole thing was re- 

 commended by men in whose standing all confidence 

 could be placed, and who, as far as could be dis- 

 covered, had no plants to sell. Under such cir- 

 cumstances, doubt seemed to be absurd. 



Testing a Novelty 



I SENT five dollars and the stamps. But this was 

 one of the secrets I never told my wife until she 

 had eaten the first bowlful of the fully ripened fruit, 

 eighteen months afterward. Well, the plants 

 came in a letter — mere fibres of a greater root — 

 certainly not thicker than a thin quill, not one 

 of them having a top. They looked like long white 

 worms, with here and there a bud or eye. I never 

 saw, until then, what I considered the meanest five 

 dollars' worth of anything I had ever bought; and 

 when my wife inquired what those things were 

 I was planting, I replied that they were little veg- 

 etable wonders which a distant correspondent had 

 sent me. Not dreaming that they cost me near 

 a dollar apiece, at the very time I owed a quarter's 

 rent, she dropped the subject. 



But I planted them in a deeply spaded and rich 

 sunny border, deluged them every week with suds 

 from the family wash, and by the close of the season 

 they had sent up more than a dozen strong canes 

 which stood six feet high. The next summer they 

 bore a crop of fruit which astonished me. From 

 the group of bushes I picked fifteen quarts of berries 



