I 7 2 
AMERICAN POMOEOGICAI, SOCIETY 
Mr. Roberts: I am sure that we gentlemen expect big prices. When 
we started in the strawberry business the New Y ork-Philadelphia price was 
probably four cents a quart, and one day when things were going well 
enough the price rose rather rapidly. And by studying economy in pro- 
duction, gathering, marketing and choosing the berry that was best adapted 
to our conditions, we not only have been successful under our conditions 
in the business, but it has grown safely and right in our neighborhood — 
and we find we can not only raise berries for profit, but when good fruit 
is packed properly we can sometimes get five, six or seven cents a quart 
more than they used to sell for. 
Mr. Webb: The strawberry growers, at least on the Delaware planta- 
tions, claim that the strawberry crop is the best crop grown, and that next 
to Pennsylvania we have the best one. And it is true, beyond this, that 
Sussex County, Del., grows more strawberries than any other similar region 
in the world. The output is about 12,000,000 quarts a year, shipping from 
two stations whence formerly eight hundred quarts were sent. Sixty or 
seventy refrigerator cars per day are sometimes sent out. Now the suc- 
cess of that business is due to the fact that the strawberry is grown there 
in such large quantities. The buyers come to the station and pay the cash. 
When a man hauls in his crate of strawberries, or his one hundred crates 
whatever the case may be, the buyer is there and offers him so much per 
crate or quart, and when he lets go of the fruit he receives a check that is 
good for the cash. And so he gets home with the money in a short time. 
And in that way every man receives the reward of his labor, and promptly. 
If he brings in poor berries he receives a poor price; if he offers good berries 
he gets a good price; and it often happens that the price paid in Greenville or 
Shelbyville and in other centers there in Delaware is quite equal to the 
price paid in Philadelphia and New York. 
President Goodman: I want to say that while Delaware has a large sup- 
ply for the East, if she has not enough to fill the orders Missouri will supply 
them. We ship them by carloads out of the Missouri towns. 
Tippin: Seems to me we passed one point in connection with the sub- 
ject of the local market. Now you understand that through the South they 
start in at Macon, Miss., where the season through they ship five hundred or 
six hundred cars, and then from the north of Arkansas on the other side of 
the river, where they ship eight hundred to one thousand two hundred cars, 
and then further up, until finally in Wisconsin. Now the people between 
that section and this coast section who want to get the best benefit out 
of the local markets must find varieties that will serve the market equally 
as good or better than those shipped in. 
[So I emphasize again that the most important point is the niche you 
are in, and then the variety that will ripen the fastest and the best at that 
time. It is perfectly useless to recommend a variety for general cultivation 
over the entire country; because even if it succeeded in southern Missouri, 
it might not do for Maine at all. 
President Goodman: Our fruit industry began in the eastern part of the 
United States and spread gradually westward through the central part of 
New York, and we have always had an inspiration from the people in that 
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