Success With Small Fruits | Page 5

among the small fruits. It is much the same as if I said, "Let us go
a-strawberrying together," and we talked as we went over hill and
through dale in a style somewhat in harmony with our wanderings.
Very many, no doubt, will glance at these introductory words, and
decline to go with me, correctly feeling that they can find better
company. Other busy, practical souls will prefer a more compact,
straightforward treatise, that is like a lesson in a class-room, rather than
a stroll in the fields, or a tour among the fruit farms, and while sorry to
lose their company, I have no occasion to find fault.
I assure those, however, who, after this preliminary parley, decide to go
further, that I will do my best to make our excursion pleasant, and to
cause as little weariness as is possible, if we are to return with full
baskets. I shall not follow the example of some thrifty people who
invite one to go "a-berrying," but lead away from fruitful nooks,
proposing to visit them alone by stealth. All the secrets I know shall
become open ones. I shall conduct the reader to all the "good places,"
and name the good things I have discovered in half a lifetime of
research. I would, therefore, modestly hint to the practical reader-- to
whom "time is money," who has an eye to the fruit only, and with
whom the question of outlay and return is ever uppermost--that he may,
after all, find it to his advantage to go with us. While we stop to gather
a flower, listen to a brook or bird, or go out of our way occasionally to
get a view, he can jog on, meeting us at every point where we "mean
business." These points shall occur so often that he will not lose as
much time as he imagines, and I think he will find my business talks
business-like--quite as practical as he desires.
To come down to the plainest of plain prose, I am not a theorist on
these subjects, nor do I dabble in small fruits as a rich and fanciful

amateur, to whom it is a matter of indifference whether his strawberries
cost five cents or a dollar a quart. As a farmer, milk must be less
expensive than champagne. I could not afford a fruit farm at all if it did
not more than pay its way, and in order to win the confidence of the
"solid men," who want no "gush" or side sentiment, even though nature
suggests some warrant for it, I will give a bit of personal experience.
Five years since, I bought a farm of twenty-three acres that for several
years had. been rented, depleted, and suffered to run wild. Thickets of
brushwood extended from the fences well into the fields, and in a
notable instance across the entire place. One portion was so stony that
it could not be plowed; another so wet and sour that even grass would
not grow upon it; a third portion was not only swampy, but liable to be
overwhelmed with stones and gravel twice a year by the sudden rising
of a mountain stream. There was no fruit on the place except apples and
a very few pears and grapes. Nearly all of the land, as I found it, was
too impoverished to produce a decent crop of strawberries. The location
of the place, moreover, made it very expensive--it cost $19,000; and yet
during the third year of occupancy the income from this place
approached very nearly to the outlay, and in 1878, during which my
most expensive improvements were made, in the way of draining,
taking out stones, etc., the income paid for these improvements, for
current expenses, and gave a surplus of over $1,800. In 1879, the net
income was considerably larger. In order that these statements may not
mislead any one, I will add that in my judgment only the combined
business of plants and fruit would warrant such expenses as I have
incurred. My farm is almost in the midst of a village, and the buildings
upon it greatly increased its cost. Those who propose to raise and sell
fruit only should not burden themselves with high-priced land. Farms,
even on the Hudson, can be bought at quite moderate prices at a mile or
more away from centres, and yet within easy reach of landings and
railroad depots.
Mr. Charles Downing, whose opinions on all horticultural questions are
so justly valued, remarked to me that no other fruit was so affected by
varying soils and climates as the strawberry. I have come to the
conclusion that soil, locality, and climate make such vast differences
that unless these variations are carefully studied and indicated, books

will mislead more people than