926 
'Tht  RURAL  NEW-YORKER 
July  7,  1923 
On  June  12  I  went  over  to  Athenia, 
N.  J.  to  see  T.  C.  Kevitt’s  strawberries. 
Kevitt  lives  in  a  suburb  of  Passaic  and 
has  been  growing  strawberries  right  on 
the  same  ground  for  many  years.  I  do 
not  know  how  he  does  it  but  year  after 
year  he  turns  out  the  crop.  This  year 
he  had  about  15,000  quarts.  He  sold  4,- 
000  quarts  to  one  large  drug  store  to  be 
used  in  ice  cream  and  soda  water.  I  pre¬ 
sume  it  may  be  said  that  prohibition  is 
partly  responsible  for  such  a  trade.  Every 
year  Kevitt  holds  a  strawberry  meeting. 
1 1  is  customers  and  friends  come  and  eat 
all  the  berries  they  want;  of  course  this 
meant  giving  away  a  good  many  crates 
of  fruit,  but  it  is  a  good  advertisement, 
for  everyone  goes  home  to  talk  about  it. 
The  interesting  thing  this  year  was  an 
exhibition  of  several  new  seedlings.  It 
seems  that  some  years  ago  Kevitt  had  a 
large  crop,  but  could  not  get  pickers.  The 
result  was  that  more  than  an  acre  of 
berries  just  simply  rotted  on  the  ground. 
From  his  expensive  seeding  a  great  army 
(30.000  at  least)  of  seedling  plants 
started  up.  Year  by  year  Kevitt  has  se¬ 
lected  the  best  ones,  until  out  of  the  30,- 
000.  he  has  four  good  ones.  One  in 
particular,  which  he  calls  Buckbee.  is 
very  promising.  It  gave  a  tremendous 
crop  this  year — large  size,  dark  color  and 
good  quality.  There  are  several  other 
promising  sorts. 
*  :J:  *  *  ❖ 
When  you  think  of  30,000  seedlings 
and  at  least  29,900  of  them  not  worth 
propagating  as  compared  with  our  com¬ 
mon  varieties,  you  have  an  idea  of  the  in¬ 
finite  patience  required  by  the  plant 
breeder  if  he  is  ever  to  produce  a  superior 
plant.  Yet,  I  suppose  if  you  will  line 
50.000  children  up  as  they  come  from 
school  you  can  hardly  expect  to  find  over 
a  dozen  who  are  naturally  fitted  to  be 
great  leaders  in  any  line  of  human  en¬ 
deavor.  Of  course  such  a  statement  will 
hurt  the  feelings  of  many  a  fond  mother 
who  firmly  believes  that  little  Georgie  or 
Helen  has  all  the  elements  of  greatness. 
I  have  found  this  world  to  be  rather  stern 
and  cruel  in  its  judgment  of  ability.  When 
a  seedling  strawberry  fails  to  show  any 
superiority  of  color  or  size  or  yield  we 
dig  it  up  and  destroy  it.  With  the  hu¬ 
man  seedling  we  will,  if  we  are  wise, 
give  it  a  new  chance  and  try  to  find  the 
place  where  it  may  dig  in  and  prove  use¬ 
ful.  I  know  of  cases  where  parents  tried 
to  make  a  lawyer,  a  doctor  or  some  other 
“profesional  man”  out  of  a  boy  who  was 
in  no  way  fitted  for  such  work.  The  boy 
lived  unhappily  for  some  years  as  a  mis¬ 
fit  until  some  accident  of  life  compelled 
him  to  use  his  hands  at  gardening  or 
mechanical  work.  Thus  he  found  his 
place  and  became  an  expert,  at  work 
which  suited  him.  I  hear  of  a  man  who 
drudged  for  years  at  a  small  college  as 
teacher  of  mathematics.  He  barely  made 
a  living  for  his  family  and  his  brain  was 
hardening  into  a  mere  dry  text  book.  A 
lot  of  unexpected  bills  drove  him  one 
Summer  vacation  to  hunt  a  job  where  he 
could  earn  a  little  money.  He  found  it 
in  an  automobile  factory  where,  to  his 
surprise,  he  soon  ranked  as  an  expert, 
lie  invented  a  little  device  and  by  means 
of  his  expert  hands  lifted  himself  out  of 
the  drudgery  of  teaching  in  a  one-horse 
college  into  the  favored  life  of  a  master 
mechanic. 
sj:  %  £  ❖ 
The  man  who  becomes  interested  in 
some  of  the  higher  lines  of  fruit  culture — 
like  growing  small  fruit  comes  to  think  of 
these  things.  His  business  is  an  expen¬ 
sive  one  and  he  cannot  succeed  unless  he  . 
knows  how  to  cultivate,  knows  all  the 
habits  of  his  plants  and  can  adapt  vari- 
ties  to  his  soil  and  conditions.  Every 
strawberry  grower  must  practice  some¬ 
thing  of  plant  breeding  and  results  will 
come  to  him  like  the  chances  in  a  lot¬ 
tery.  I  used  to  think  that  the  way  to  ob¬ 
tain  a  fine  new  seedling  was  to  save  seeds 
from  the  finest  specimens  of  Marshall, 
for  if  we  had  a  berry  with  quality  and 
size  of  Marshall  and  the  yielding  power 
of  Chesapeake  or  Howard  we  should  find 
the  ideal.  Yet  from  hundreds  of  Mar¬ 
shal!  seedlings  we  have  obtained  only 
small,  inferior  berries  not  worth  consid¬ 
ering  for  a  morn*  nt.  ^ome  good  seedlings 
have  been  developed  by  definite  crossing 
of  Marshall  on  some  common  variety  but 
as  a  rule,  I  think,  one  best  plants  thus 
far  have  been  chance  seedlings  frequently 
with  unknown  parentage.  This  selecting 
seedlings  of  strawberries  or  of  humans 
is  a  great  problem  and  if  we  can  become 
interested  in  it  we  will  find  something 
of  the  joy  of  life  in  following  it  out.  T 
know  a  man  who  was  greatly  annoyed 
by  a  impecunious  relative.  This  man 
was  constantly  getting  into  trouble  and 
then  begging  my  friend  to  lend  him  the 
money  needed  to  get  out.  Just  when 
my  friend  would  think  he  had 
saved  a  little  money  so  he  could 
afford  to  buy  something  he  wanted. 
Billy  would  get  into  another  scrape  and 
come  whining  for  the  money  to  keep  him 
out  of  jail  or  enable  him  to  get  out  of 
town.  One  day  Henry  had  accumulated 
the  money  for  a  set  of  furniture  which 
was  to  he  given  his  wife  on  her  birthday 
— when  there  came  a  letter  from  Billy. 
It  looked  like  the  same  old  tale  of  woe 
and  Henry  just  stuffed  it  into  his  pocket 
unopened.  He  decided  to  pay  no  atten¬ 
tion  to  it.  That  night  he  sat  reading 
that  book  by  Wells  of  the  worthless 
scamp  who  kept  coming  to  his  friend  for 
money.  The  friend  kept  giving  up  until 
finally  he  refused.  Eater  this  refusal 
troubled  him  and  he  hunted  up  his  worth¬ 
less  friend  to  find  that  he  had  died  for 
lack  of  a  little  money  !  This  worked  on 
Henry’s  nerves  and  he  said,  “I’ll  read  the 
letter  anyway  1”  So  he  opened  it  ex¬ 
pecting  another  demand  for  a  loan  and 
a  check  dropped  out.  Billy  had  in  some 
way  struck  a  windfall  and  had  paid  his 
entire  debt  with  inlerest!  A  mau  go'u.g 
out' after  improved  seedling  should  read 
all  the  letters  which  nature  writes  him. 
You  never  can  tell  what  she  is  going  to 
say. 
*  *  *  *  $ 
Our  own  strawberry  season  has  been 
fair.  The  late  frost  hurt  us  a  little  with 
several  varieties,  and  the  dry  weather 
shortened  the  crop.  Our  second  year’s 
fruiting  did  not  come  to  much.  The  boys 
made  a  mistake  and  put  an  extra  heavy 
coat  of  manure  on  this  old  bed  early  in 
Spring.  I  did  not  want  this  done,  for 
the  bed  was  quite  grassy  and  I  knew  that 
the  manure  would  drive  the  weeds  and 
grass  into  an  immense  growth.  That  is 
what  happened.  In  some  place  the  clover 
and  grass  are  waist  high,  covering  the 
strawberries  entirely.  Of  course  they 
about  earning  $5  a  day  or  more  driving 
trucks  or  at  similar  jobs,  which  give  in¬ 
finite  variety  compared  with  hoeing  all 
day  in  the  hot  sand.  All  these  things 
will  limit  berry  production  and  keep  the 
price  high.  Further  than  that,  they*  will 
make  the  production  of  fine  berries  a  pro¬ 
fession  fit  only  for  those  who  have  a  gen¬ 
uine  strawberry  mark  on  their  arms. 
it.  W.  C. 
Non-sitting  Rhode  Island  Reds 
I  am  sending  an  account  of  the  de¬ 
velopment  of  the  above  strain.  It  cer¬ 
tainly  is  a  very  rare  trait  to  be  found  in 
■  that  breed.  The  original  non-sitter  was 
undoubtedly  a  freak,  bred  by  Lewis 
Sutphen  of  Ringoes,  N.  J.,  in  1918.  But 
her  non-sitting  trait  was  not  discovered 
until  she  was  over  three  years  old.  In 
1920  she  had  been  in  his  breeding  pen 
but  laid  so  continuously  and  molted  so 
very  late  as  to  be  only  in  pin-feathers 
and  almost  naked  when  the  other  breed¬ 
ers  were  marketed,  so  he  put  her  in  a 
pen  of  pullets  ’where  in  1921  this  old 
lien  was  easily  distinguished  from  the 
pullets  and  then  it  became  noticeable 
that  she  never  wanted  to  hatch  and  was 
an  exceptional  layer.  He  told  me  of 
her  rare  trait  and  arranged  with  me  to 
propagate  from  her  and  a  9-lb.  male. 
Because  this  male  was  so  vigorous  and 
she  the  only  female  with  him,  they  pro¬ 
duced  nearly  all  male  chicks.  Of  her  13 
pullets,  only  one-half  non-set,  of  course. 
A  farmer’s  daughter  prepares  a  dainty  lunch.  It  might  not  suit  a  crew  of 
hungry  thrashers  rushing  to  finish  their  job,  but  there  are  other  days  in  the 
farm  home  vrhen  neat  and  dainty  service  is  appreciated. 
cannot  ripen  well  under  such  conditions. 
On  our  clean  beds  the  yield  was  good. 
Howard  17  has  been  our  best  market 
berry  this  year.  The  Marshall  berries 
were  large  and  fine,  but  there  is  not 
enough  of  them  to  make  this  variety  prof¬ 
itable  unless  you  can  get  a  high  price. 
Most  of  ours  were  sold  at  20  cents  a  quart 
wholesale.  We  have  had  all  the  berries 
our  big  family  could  eat  for  about  65 
consecutive  meals.  One  of  our  neghbors 
in  a  nearby  town  has  a  wayside  market 
and  he  has  handled  most  of  our  fruit.  I 
am  satisfied  that  something  of  this  sort  is 
to  be  the  system  of  the  future.  There 
are  too  many  of  the  little  individual  road¬ 
side  stands.  They  cannot  give  variety  or 
full  quality.  One  man  established  at 
some  central  point  with  a  good-sized  place 
can  handle  the  surplus  goods  for  25  or 
more  farmers  and  save  money  for  all. 
That  will  give  a  chance  for  uniform  grad¬ 
ing  and  packing  and  give  a  feeling  of  re¬ 
sponsibility  which  can  hardly  be  obtained 
in  any  other  way.  Near  the  larger  towns 
and  cities  such  a  plan  ought  to  work 
well,  and  will,  I  think,  settle  many  of  our 
marketing  troubles.  I  think  that  both 
dealers  and  consumers  can  be  made  to 
come  out  to  us  if  we  handle  the  matter 
right.  This  year  we  sent  several  crates 
of  berries  to  a  street  fair  in  aid  of  the 
hospital  in  our  county  town.  As  a  result 
the  telephone  was  kept  ringing  by  peop’e 
who  wanted  to  drive  out  and  get  some  of 
“those  berries.”  One  man  wanted  five 
crates.  All  such  things  represent  adver 
tising  and  we  must  make  use  of  them. 
*  *  *  *  * 
Up  where  we  live  it  seems  evident  that 
the  strawberry  crop  will  be  a  good  one  to 
sell  for  some  years  to  come.  There  is  a 
demand  for  good  berries,  but  the  trouble 
is  to  get  pickers  and  people  to  work  with 
hoes.  On  our  weedy  ground  it  is  impos¬ 
sible  to  raise  good  berries  unless  some¬ 
one  is  willing  to  toil  many  hot  and  mon¬ 
otonous  hours  with  a  hoe  or  with  the 
Anvers.  You  may  perhaps  raise  a  fair 
crop  of  corn  or  tomatoes  with  horse  tools 
al  ne,  but  hand  work  is  a  necessity  in  the 
berry  field.  And  the  crop  cannot  be 
picked  by  machinery.  Each  berry  must 
be  picked  by  the  fingers,  one  at  a  time. 
And  there  are  few  people  left  who  like 
to  do  these  things,  and  this  will  be  the 
limiting  factor  in  strawberry  culture.  It 
requires  a  man  of  vision  and  character  to 
toil  and  sweat  through  a  long  Summer 
season  with  no  crop  income  and  heavy 
expenses  and  then  take  a  chance  on  two 
weeks  in  .Tune  for  getting  his  money  out. 
I  do  not  see  great  hope  in  the  labor  ques¬ 
tion.  My  boys  home  from  college  talk 
appreei 
only  one,  the  youngest,  has  become 
broody. 
After  discovering  the  trait  of  the  old 
hen  Mr.  Sutphen  began  watching  for  her 
progeny  among  the  females  bred  from 
eggs  of  her  breeding  pen  of  1920  and 
found  22  that  have  not  wanted  to  hatch 
in  their  third  laying  year.  Now  on  the 
opposite  hand.  Ray  DuBois  of  Forest 
(ilen,  Y.,  by  trap-nests,  discovered 
that  each  Cornell  Leghorn  pullet  that 
showed  broodiness  had  been  hatched  from 
eggs  of  the  only  broody  hen  he  had 
owned.  These  experiences  prove  quite 
conclusively  that  broodiness  is  inherited 
from  the  mother’s  side  of  the  family.  And 
why  shouldn’t  it,  ftie  female  transmits 
that  trait,  surely  the  male  never  inclines 
toward  broodiness! 
With  the  non-sitters  of  the  1920  hatch 
were  mated  cockerels  of  the  five-year 
old  hen,  and  from  these  matings  37  ‘set¬ 
tings  of  eggs  have  been  disposed  of  for 
hatching  beside  raising  over  200  of  these, 
three-fourths  non-sit  chicks  for  distri¬ 
bution  among  other  breeders. 
Einzey  Lewis  of  Rosendale.  N.  Y. 
found  another  non-sitting  freak  last  year. 
When  a  chick,  her  neck  had  been  torn 
by  a  rat  and  never  feathered  over  proper¬ 
ly  so  she  always  feared  being  picked  by 
other  fowls  and  every  morning  would 
beg  to  be  let  out  from  their  pen  and  was 
daily  given  the  freedom  of  the  lawn  and 
garage.  In  the  garage  she  found  an  old 
wash  tub  and  out  of  gratitude  for  de¬ 
liverance  she  seemed  to  have  vowed  to 
fill  that  tub  with  eggs!  Being  the  only 
hen  having  access  to  the  garage  her  non- 
sitting  trait  was  easily  discovered.  In 
l  y  .stable  she  persists  in  filling  the 
manger  !  She  has  laid  almost  daily  since 
placed  in  a  breeding  pen  with  the  choicest 
cockerel  from  the  old  hen  and  from  this 
mating  several  choice  cockerels  are  be¬ 
ing  reared  for  heading  breeding  nens  t«? 
produce  seven-eighths  non-set  chicks  next 
year.  Another  non-sitttr,  not  a  kin,  is 
to  be  tested  next  year  Thus  by  infusing 
fresh  non-sitting  blood  through' not  akin, 
r  on-sitting  females  this  non-sitting  trait 
is  confirmed  and  by  careful  selection  of 
the:r  cockerels  other  excellencies  are  im¬ 
proved  each  year. 
Of  course  not  all  their  offsrping  will 
be  entirely  free  from  broodiness,  but  to 
get  rid  of  a  large  part  of  this  notorious 
trouble  of  the  Rhode  Island  Reds  is 
blessed.  I  firmly  believe  that  in  time 
broodiness  can  be  bred  out  of  them  en¬ 
tirely  and  kept  out  continuously  unless 
in-bred  too  closely  or  broody  blood  be 
infused  by  careless  selections  for  mat 
ings.  J.  A.  BEEKMAN, 
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