Yearly Chat ttJitb friends Old and Slew. 
Ii> is.lmw almost springtime and spring is when 90 per cent of all plants are 
purchased and planted, and rignt here I want to thank each and every one of 
my thousands of customers for the very generous business which they gave me 
last year. This was decidedly the largest trade I have ever had, in fact more than 
double that of any previous year. It might be interesting to some of my custom¬ 
ers to know that during the spring months just past we sent our plants to more 
than 5,000 different people,consisting of about 7,000,000 plants, which would weigh 
when*packed ready for freight, express and mail, something over seventy tons, 
and at the very low price at which we sold the stock the sales amounted to over 
$22,000.00. To get off this immense amount of plants we employed about 100 
men for nearly the entire spring, many of whom worked from seven o’clock 
a. m., till ten, eleven, and sometimes twelve o’clock p. m. To begin with, the 
very backward spring made us late in getting started, consequently put us be¬ 
hind. Everything possible was done to catch up and get stock off in time, but 
it was such a tremendous rush through April that some of our customers were 
not served as promptly as it was our desire that they should have been. Never¬ 
theless, it is very seldom that we have a spring as cold, rainy, and backward as 
the one just past, and with improved facilities and a better system, we hope in 
the future to fill every order promptly. It shall be our constant aim to do this, 
and give every customer entire satisfaction, as I fully realize that in this busi¬ 
ness, more than in many others, success depends almost entirely upon the good 
will and confidence of our patrons, and this I shall always strive to merit. 
The past summer has been very dry. May was exceedingly so, continuing very 
dry until our berry season was well advanced, which, on the whole, was al¬ 
most an entire failure, owing to the lack of moisture. Our prospect was the 
finest we ever had for a large crop of strawberries, and very conservatively es¬ 
timated before the drought set in at 150,000 quarts of very fine fruit. This, 
however, was reduced by the unfavorable weather conditions to 50,000 quarts 
of very inferior fruit. This same drouth and others which followed also made 
the plant crop much shorter than usual not only with me but basing iny calcu¬ 
lations upon the judgment of reliable authority in different sectiuns of the 
country I believe the actual supply of strawberry plants throughout the country 
taken as a whole is shorter than it has been for several sears. 
Knowing this to be a fact my advertisement will not be found in all the 
leading Agricultural papers this year as heretofore, and my catalogue instead 
of being sent to a list of 70,000 as heretofore, will only be sent to about 20,000 
who have actually bought of me in the last few years, and perhaps a few others 
who may ask for it. I am doing this so that I can give my old customers a 
chance to get what they want at as near last year’s low prices as possible. Most 
prices will be the same; several new varieties much lower, and a few old stand¬ 
ard sorts a little higher. Nearly all of my present stock of plants are growing 
in new land, and you will find they are very nicely rooted and all good clean 
healthy stock No disease and no insect pest can be found on my farm any- 
~ and new customers I can, but £ 
where. Wishing all my friends and patrons 
more happiness and more prosperity in the 
new century than they have had in the old 
I remain Yours faithfully, 
W. F. ALLEN. 
