SMALL FRUITS, EDWARD P. ROE, UTHOR OF " BARRIERS BURNED AWAY, "OPENING A CHESTNUT BURR." "PLAY AND PROFIT IN MY GARDEN," &c. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS NEW YORK: DODD, MEAD & COMPANY 1882. SB ss R le Copyright, 1881, by DODD, MEAD & COMPANY. THE BURR PRINTING HOUSE, New York. GJ dedicate twa afe)ook to Li and G/zom wiiow G) ^feali e&teetn it a p^im Co teazn tn cowwq ijea^& a& J J GJ liave in tfoe pa&t. PREFACE. A BOOK should be judged somewhat in vieiv of what it attempts. •**• One of the chief objects of this little volume is to lure men and women back to their original calling, that of gardening. I am decidedly under the impression that Eve helped Adam, especially as the sun declined. I am sure that they had small fruits for breakfast, dinner and supper, and would not be at all surprised if they ate some between meals. Even we poor mortals ^vho have sinned more than once, and must give our minds to the effort not to appear unnatural in many hideous styles of dress, can fare as well. The Adams and Eves of every generation can have an Eden if they wish. Indeed, I know of many instances in which Eve creates a beautiful and fruitful garden without any help from Adam. The theologians shozv that we have inherited much evil from our first parents, but, in the general disposition to have a garden, can we not recog- nize a redeeming ancestral trait? I would like to contribute my little share toward increasing this tendency, believing that as humanity goes back to its first occupation it may also acquire some of the primal gardener's characteristics before he listened to temptation and ceased to be even a gentleman. When he brutally blamed the woman, it was time he was turned out of Eden. All the best things of the garden suggest refine- ment and courtesy. Nature might have contented herself with producing seeds only, but she accompanies the prosaic action with fragrant fiowers and delicious fruit. It would be well to remember this in the ordinary courtesies of life. Moreover, since the fruit-garden and farm do not develop in a straight- forward, matter-of-fact way, why should I write about them after the formal and terse fashion of a manual or scientific treatise ? The most productive varieties of fruit blossom and have some foliage which may not be very beautiful any more than the departures from -practical prose in this book are interesting; but, as a leafless plant or bush, laden with fruit, ivould 8 Preface. appear gaunt and naked, so, to the writer, a book about them without any attempt at foliage and flowers would seem unnatural. The modern chronicler has transformed history into a fascinating story. Even science is now taught through the charms of fiction. Shall this department of knowledge, so generally useful, be left only to technical prose? Why should we not have a class of books as practical as the gardens, fields, and crops, concerning which they are written, and at the same time having -much of the light, shade, color and life of the out-of-door world. I merely claim that I have made an attempt in the right direction, but, like an unskillful artist, may have so confused my lights, shades, and mixed my colors so badly that my pictures resemble a strawberry -bed in which the weeds have the better of the fruit. Liberal outlines of this work, with its illustrations, appeared in Scrib- ner's Magazine, but the larger scope afforded by the book has enabled me to treat many subjects for which there was no space in the magazine, and also to give my views more fully concerning topics only touched upon in the serial. As the fruits described are being improved, so in the future other and more skillful horticulturists will develop the literature relating to them into its true proportions. I am well aware that the superb illustrations give to this volume, in the estimation of many, its chief value, and for them I am indebted to the liberal views of Messrs. Scribner & Company, and to Messrs. Dodd, Mead & Company, my publishers. The task of gathering my material was a labor of love, often made doubly delightful by the companionship of the gentleman having charge of the art department of Scribner 's Magazine, Mr. A. W. Drake, and to his good taste the reader is largely indebted for the beauty of the engravings. I shall, moreover, always cherish a grateful memory of the aid received from my brother, the Rev. A. C. Roe, and from Mr. W. H. Gibson, whose intimate knowledge of nature enabled him to give so correctly the character- istics of the fruits he portrayed. I am greatly indebted to the instruction received at various times from those venerable fathers and authorities on all questions relating to Eden -like pursuits — Mr. Chas. Downing of Newburgh, and Hon. Marshall P. Wilder of Boston, Mr. J. J. Thomas, Dr. Geo. Thurber ; to such valuable works as those of A. S. Fuller, A. J. Downing, P. Barry, J. M. Merrick^ Jr., and some English authors ; to the live horticultural journals in the East, West and South, and, last but not least, to many plain, practical fruit-growers, who are as well informed and sensible as they are modest in expressing their opinions. Com it >all- on- the- Hudson , New - York. CONTENTS. Chapter. Page. I. PRELIMINARY PARLEY . . . . . . , , .... 13 II. THE FRUIT GARDEN . ...*.. . . , ; . . ». 18 III. SMALL FRUIT FARMING AND ITS PROFITS ...... 26 IV. STRAWBERRIES — THE FIVE SPECIES AND THEIR HISTORY ... 33 V. IDEAL STRAWBERRIES VERSUS THOSE OF THE FIELD AND MARKET 44 VI. CHOICE OF SOIL AND LOCATION . . . . . . . * . 48 VII. PREPARING AND ENRICHING THE SOIL . . . . . . . 51 Till. PREPARATION OF SOIL BY DRAINAGE . . . . \ . . . 60 IX. THE PREPARATION OF SOILS COMPARATIVELY UNFAVORABLE . 71 X. COMMERCIAL AND SPECIAL FERTILIZERS . . .... . 77 XI. OBTAINING PLANTS AND IMPROVING OUR STOCK . . . . . 84 XII. WHEN SHALL WE PLANT? ^ . , . . . . . ... . 88 XIII. WHAT SHALL WE PLANT ?..... % .... 93 XIV. SETTING OUT PLANTS .... 105 XV. CULTIVATION . . . ..'..'.-• . . . . . . . 109 XVI. A SOUTHERN STRAWBERRY FARM, AND METHODS OF CULTURE . 121 XVII. FORCING STRAWBERRIES UNDER GLASS -. . . . * . . 146 XVTII. ORIGINATING NEW VARIETIES — HYBRIDIZATION 150 XIX. RASPBERRIES — SPECIES, HISTORY, PROPAGATION, ETC. . . . 158 XX. RASPBERRIES — PRUNING — STAKING — MULCHING — PROTECTION, ETC. 167 XXL RASPBERRIES — VARIETIES OF THE FOREIGN AND NATIVE SPECIES . 173 XXII. RUBUS OCCIDENTALS — BLACK-CAP AND PURPLE CANE RASPBERRIES 186 XXIII. THE RASPBERRIES OF THE FUTURE 191 XXIV. BLACKBERRIES — VARIETIES, CULTIVATION, ETC 199 XXV. CURRANTS — CHOICE OF SOIL, CULTIVATION, PRUNING, ETC. . . 209 XXVI. CURRANTS, CONTINUED — PROPAGATION, VARIETIES . . . . 217 XXVII. GOOSEBERRIES 226 XXVIII. DISEASES AND INSECT ENEMIES OF SMALL FRUITS .... 232 XXIX. PICKING AND MARKETING 247 XXX. IRRIGATION 255 XXXI. SUGGESTIVE EXPERIENCES FROM WIDELY SEPARATED LOCALITIES . 261 XXXII. A FEW RULES AND MAXIMS 272 XXXIII. VARIETIES OF STRAWBERRIES 279 XXXIV. VARIETIES OF OTHER SMALL FRUITS 300 XXXV. CLOSING WORDS 304 2 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. Title. " YE BOYS THAT GATHER," ETC THE HOME SHE MIGHT HAVE HAD SEEDS AND PULP, ETC THE ALPINE STRAWBERRY HAUTBOIS OR HAARBEER STRAWBERRY. . . INDIAN STRAWBERRY COMMON WILD STRAWBERRY FRAGARIA CHILENSIS NEW YORK FLOWER AND FRUIT MISSION STRAWBERRY OF MEMORY SCENE OF OPERATIONS THE CHAMPION GRUBBER MAP SHOWING EXPERIMENTS JUCUNDA STRAWBERRY TOOLS FOR STRAWBERRY FARM COUNTING AND MAILING PLANTS POTTING RUNNERS A POTTED PLANT STRAWBERRY BLOSSOMS SHARPLESS AND WILD STRAWBERRIES CRESCENT SEEDLING A CLUSTER OF PIONEER STRAWBERRIES. . KENTUCKY SEEDLING, ETC WATERING PLANTS WRONG METHODS, ETC., A A rtist. Engraver. Robt. Blum J. F. Jungling. Mrs. Mary H. Foote Photo- Eng. Co. IV. H. Gibson " " W.J.Wilson. « W.J.Dana. " E. Clement. " W.J.Wilson. Miss Jessie Curtis G. Kruell. Mrs. Mary H. Foote Miss C. A. Powell. W. H. Gibson Robt. Varley. A. Kappes Fred Juengling. Chas. Caldwell R. D. Servoss. R. Riordan F. S. King. H. W. Troy Photo-Eng. Co. A. Kappes James Tynan. W. H. Gibson. . . .S. S. Kilburn. Felix Le Blanc. . E. H. Windham. . Felix Le Blanc. H. E. Schultz. E. A. Winham. F. S. King. Photo-Eng. Co. c D " " .. PROPER METHOD, " E " " ROOT PRUNING " " BOY WEEDING " " EARLY SPRING WORK Alfred Kappes . . A DUCHESS Row AND BERRY W. H. Gibson . . MATTED BED SYSTEM . " " . A. J. Whitney. .Fred Juengling. .H. E. Schultz. Photo-Eng. Co. 1 2 Success with Small Fruits. Title. A rtist. Engraver. NARROW Row AND HILL SYSTEMS W. H. Gibson Photo- Eng. Co. THE FOREST ROSE, ETC " " E. A. Winham. MR. YOUNG'S COTTAGE W. L. Sheppard W. J. Dana. THE FIRST GLIMPSE " " J. F. Jungling. " A LITTLE BRIEF AUTHORITY" " " E. Heinemann. NONDESCRIPT EDIBLES " " G. Kruell. " GIT UP, DAR," ETC '. . . " " Photo-Eng. Co.. PEOPLE WHO TAKE NO THOUGHT " " James Tynan. EXCHANGING AND COUNTING TICKETS. ... " " A. J. Whitney. PAYING OFF HANDS " " W. R. Bodenstalx MAKING CRATES, ETC " " J. H. E. Whitney.. A PICKER " " David Nichols. RUSHING THE LAST LOT " " S. S. Kilburn. NATURE'S ROUGE Miss Jessie Curtis " " FRANCONIA AND BELLE DE FONTENAY, ETC. W. H. Gibson H. E. Schultz. SPRING AND FALL PLANTS " " Amer. Photo-Eng. Cov WINTER PROTECTION, ETC " " " " " " TYING CANES " " " STORAGE GROUND A. Kappes W. R. Bodenstab. LAYING DOWN CANES W, H. Gibson Amer. Photo-Eng. Co.. ANTWERP CLASS OF RASPBERRIES R. Riordan Miss C. A. Powell. RUSH FOR THE NIGHT BOAT W. Taber J. H. E. Whitney. APPROACH OF THE NIGHT BOAT " " Thos. Hellawell. NATIVE RASPBERRIES R. Riordan S. S. Kilburn. RUBUS OCCIDENTALS W. H. Gibson Photo-Eng. Co. HERSTINE RASPBERRY, ETC " " A. J. Whitney. GATHERING A DAINTY DISH Miss Jessie Curtis W. R. Bodenstab. GATHERING WILD BLACKBERRIES Winslmv Homer James Tynan. KITTATINNY BLACKBERRY W. H. Gibson., E. C. Held. CUTHBERT RASPBERRY " " J. H. E. Whitney. EARLY WILSON BLACKBERRY R. Riordan E. Kingsley. SNYDER BLACKBERRY W. H. Gibson H. Gray. WHITE GRAPE CURRANTS " " H. E. Schultz. IN THE CURRANT FIELD Miss Jessie Curtis J. Hellawell. WEIGHING CURRANTS " " " W. R. Bodenstab. LATE EMERALD GOOSEBERRY R. Riordan H. Schultz. THE JELLY WONT JELL Mary Hallock Foote John P. Davis. CURRANTS IN TREE FORM Miss Jessie Curtis A. J. Whitney. CURRANT CUTTINGS, ETC .^ . W. '. H. Gibson Amer. Photo-Eng. Co,. THE IDEAL VERSAILLES CLUSTER " " " " « « THE STRAWBERRY'S CHIEF FOE " " CHERRY CURRANTS " " S. S. Kilburn. HOUGHTON SEEDLING " " Amer. Photo-Eng. Co. DOWNING GOOSEBERRY R. Riordan H. Schultz. TAKING THE CRATES, ETC W. H. Gibson Geo. Smith. QUARTERS FOR PICKERS W. Taber T. D. Sugden. THE DELIBERATE WORKMAN " " . . • Jno. W. Evans. PICKING RASPBERRIES, ETC " " " « « MARLBORO' THIRDS W. H. Gibson Amer. Photo-Eng. Co. SUNNYSIDE FRUIT-BOX " « « « « « A HAP-HAZARD HOE A. B. Frost Photo-Eng. Co. CHAPTER I. PRELIMINARY PARLEY. IN the ages that were somewhat shadowed, to say the least, when Nature indulged her own wild moods in man, and the world he trampled on rather than cultivated, there was a class who in their dreams and futile efforts became the unconscious prophets of our own time — the Alchemists. For centuries they believed they could transmute base metals into gold and silver. Modern knowledge enables us to work changes more beneficial than the alchemist ever dreamed of, and it shall be my aim to make one of these secrets as open as the sunlight in the fields and gardens wherein the beautiful mutations occur. To turn iron into gold would be a prosaic, barren process that might result in trouble to all concerned, but to trans- form heavy black earth and insipid rain-water into edible rubies with celestial perfume and ambrosial flavor, is indeed an art that appeals to the entire race, and enlists that imperious nether organ which has never lost its power over heart or brain. As long, therefore, as humanity's mouth waters at the thought of morsels more delicious even than " Sin under the tongue," I am sure of an audience when I discourse of strawberries and their kindred fruits. If apples led to the loss of Paradise, the reader will find described hereafter a list of fruits that will enable him to reconstruct a bit of Eden, even if the " Fall and all our woe" have left him possessed of merely a city yard. But land in the country, breezy hill-sides, moist, sheltered valleys, sunny plains — what opportunities for the divinest form of alchemy are here afforded to hundreds of thousands ! 13 14 ^Success *&ith Small Fruits. .•:.•'•.•.-• Many think of the soil only in connection with the sad words of the burial service — "Earth to earth, ashes to ashes." Let us, while we may, gain more cheerful associations with our kindred dust. For a time it can be earth to strawberry blossoms, ashes to bright red berries, and their color will get into our cheeks and their rich subacid juices into our insipid lives, constituting a mental, moral and physical alterative that will so change us that we shall believe in evolution and imagine ourselves fit for a higher state of existence. One may delve in the earth so long as to lose all dread at the thought of sleeping in it at last, and the luscious fruits and bright-hued flowers that come out of it, in a way no one can find out, may teach our own resurrection more effectually than do the learned theologians. We naturally feel that some good saints in the flesh, even though they are " pillars of the church," need more than a " sea-change " before they can become proper citizens of " Jerusalem the Golden," but having com- pared a raspberry bush, bending gracefully under its delicious burden, with the insignificant seed from which it grew, we are ready to .believe in all possibilities of good. Thus we may gather more than berries from our fruit-gardens. Nature hangs thoughts and suggestions on every spray, and blackberry bushes give many an impressive scratch to teach us that good and evil are very near together in this world, and that we must be careful while seeking the one, to avoid the other. In every field of life those who seek the fruit too rashly are almost sure to have a thorny experience, and to learn that prickings are provided for those who have no consciences. He who sees in the world around him only what strikes the eye lives in a poor, half-furnished house ; he who obtains from his garden only what he can eat gathers but a meager crop. If I find something besides berries on my vines, I shall pick it if so inclined. The scientific treatise, or precise manual, may break up the well-rooted friendship of plants, and compel them to take leave of each other, after the arbitrary fashion of methodical minds, but I must talk about them very much as nature has taught me, since, in respect to out-of-door life, my education was acquired almost wholly in the old-fashioned way at the venerable "dame's school." Nay more, I claim that I have warrant to gather from my horticultural texts more than can be sent to the dining-table or commission merchant. Such a matter-of-fact plant as the currant makes some attempt to embroider its humble life with ornament, and in April the bees will prove to you that honey may be gathered even from a gooseberry bush. Indeed, goose- berries are like some ladies that we all know. In their young and blos- soming days they are sweet and pink-hued, and then they grow acid, pale, and hard, but in the ripening experience of later life they become sweet Preliminary Parley. 15 again and tender. Before they drop from their places the bees come back for honey, and find it. In brief, I propose to take the reader on quite an extended ramble among the small fruits. It is much the same as if I said, " Let us go a strawberry ing 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, mod- estly 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 brush-wood 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 1 6 Success with Small Fruits. 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 expen- sive— 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 $i, 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 incur- red. 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 centers, 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 conclu- sion that soil, locality and climate make such vast differences that unless these variations are carefully studied and indicated, books will mislead more people than they help. A man may write a treatise admirably adapted to his own farm ; but if one, living a thousand, a hundred, or even one mile away, followed the same method, he might almost utterly fail. While certain general and foundation principles apply to the culti- vation of each genus of fruit, important modifications and, in some instances, almost radical changes of method must be made in view of the varied conditions in which it is grown. It is even more important to know what varieties are best adapted to different localities and soils. While no experienced and candid authority will speak confidently and precisely on this point, much very useful infor- mation and suggestion may be given by one who, instead of theorizing, observes, questions and records facts as they are. The most profitable strawberry of the far South will produce scarcely any fruit in the North, although the plant grows well, and some of our best raspberries cannot even exist in a hot climate or upon very light soils. In the preparation of this book it has been my aim to study these conditions, that I might give Preliminary Parley. \ 7 advice useful in Florida and Canada, New York and California, as well as at Cornwall. I have maintained an extensive correspondence with practical fruit growers in all sections, and have read with care contributions to the horticultural press from widely separated localities. Not content with this, I have visited in person the great fruit-growing centers of New Jersey, Norfork and Richmond, Va. ; Charleston, S. C. ; Augusta and Savannah, Ga., and several points in Florida. Thus, from actual observation and full, free conversation, I have familiarized myself with both the Northern and Southern aspects of this industry, while my correspondence from the far West, South-west and California will, I hope, enable me to aid the novice in those regions also. I know in advance that my book will contain many and varied faults, but I intend that it shall be an expression of honest opinion. I do not like "foxy grapes" nor foxy words about them. • CHAPTER II. THE FRUIT GARDEN. Raison d'etre. OMALL fruits, to people who live in the country, are like heaven, — O objects of universal desire and very general neglect Indeed, in a land so peculiarly adapted to their cultivation, it is difficult to account for this neglect if you admit the premise that Americans are civilized and intellectual. It is the trait of a savage and inferior race to devour with immense gusto a delicious morsel, and then trust to luck for another. People who would turn away from a dish of " Monarch " strawberries, with their plump pink cheeks powdered with sugar, or from a plate of melting raspberries and cream, would be regarded as so eccentric as to suggest an asylum ; but the number of professedly intelligent and moral folk who ignore the simple means of enjoying the ambrosial viands daily, for weeks together, is so large as to shake one's confidence in human nature. A welUmaintained fruit garden is a comparatively rare adjunct of even stylish and pretentious homes. In June, of all months, in sultry July and August, there arises from innumerable country breakfast tables the pungent odor of a meat into which the devils went, but out of which there is no proof they ever came. From the garden under the windows might have been gathered fruits whose aroma would have tempted spirits of the air. The cabbage-patch may be seen afar, but too often the strawberry-bed, even if it exists, is hidden by weeds, and the later small fruits struggle for bare life in some neglected corner. Indeed, an excursion into certain parts of New England might suggest that 18 Increase of Flower and Fruit Culture. 19 •^% many of its thrifty citizens would not have been content in Eden until they had put its best land into onions and tobacco. Through the superb scenery of Vermont there flows a river whose name, one might think, would secure an unfailing tide from the eyes of the inhabitants. The Alpine strawberry grows wild in all that region, but the Puritan smacked his lips over another gift of nature and named the romantic stream in its honor. To account for certain tastes or tendencies, mankind must certainly have fallen a little way, or, if Mr. Darwin's view is correct, and we are on a slight up-grade, a dreadful hitch and tendency to backslide has been apparent at a certain point ever since the Hebrews sighed for the "leeks and onions of Egypt." Of course, there is little hope for the rural soul that "loathes" the light manna of small fruits. We must leave it to evolution for another cycle or two. But, as already indicated, we believe that humanity in the main has reached a point where its internal organs highly approve of the delicious group of fruits that strayed out of Paradise, and have not yet lost themselves among the "thorns and thistles." Indeed, modern skill — the alchemy of our age — has wrought such wonders that Eden is possible again to all who will take the trouble to form Eden-like tastes and capacities. The number who are doing this is increasing every year. The large demand for literature relating to out-of-door life, horticultural journals, like the fruits of which they treat, flourishing in regions new and remote, are proof of this. The business of supplying fruit-trees, plants, and even flowers, is becoming a vast industry. I have been informed that one enterprising firm annually spends thousands in advertising roses only. But, while we welcome the evidences that so many are ceasing to be bucolic heathen, much observation has shown that the need of further enlightenment is large indeed. It is depressing to think of the number oi homes about which fruits are conspicuous only by their absence — homes of every class, from the laborer's cottage and pioneer's cabin to the suburban palace. Living without books and pictures is only a little worse than living in the country without fruits and flowers. We must respect to some extent the old ascetics, who, in obedience to mistaken ideas of duty, deprived themselves of the good things God provided, even while we recognize the stupidity of such a course. Little children are rarely so lacking in sense as to try to please their father by contempt- uously turning away from his best gifts, or by treating them with indifference. Why do millions live in the country, year after year, raising weeds and brambles, or a few coarse vegetables, when the choicest fruits 2O Success with Small Fruits. would grow almost as readily ? They can plead no perverted sense of duty. It is a question hard to answer. Some, perhaps, have the delusion that fine small fruits are as difficult to raise as orchids. They class them with hot-house grapes. Others think they need so little attention that they can stick a few plants in hard, poor ground and leave them to their fate. One might as well try to raise canary-birds and kittens together as strawberries and weeds. There is a large class who believe in small fruits, and know their value. They enjoy them amazingly at a friend's table, and even buy some when they are cheap. A little greater outlay and a little intelligent effort would give them an abundant supply from their own grounds. In a vague way they are aware of this, and reproach themselves for their negli- gence, but time passes and there is no change for the better. Why ? I don't know. There are men who rarely kiss their wives and children. For them the birds sing unheeded and even unheard ; flowers become mere objects, and sunsets suggest only "quitting time." In theory they believe in all these things. What can be said of them save that they simply jog on to-day as they did yesterday, ever dimly hoping at some time or other " to live up to their privileges." But they usually go on from bad to worse, until, like their neglected strawberry-beds, they are " turned under." In cities not a hundred miles from my farm there are abodes of wealth with spacious grounds, where, in many instances, scarcely any place is found for small fruits. " It is cheaper and easier to buy them," it is said. This is a sorry proof of civilization. There is no economy in the barbaric splendor of brass buttons and livery, but merely a little trouble (I doubt about money) is saved on the choicest luxuries of the year. The idea of going out of their rural paradises to buy half-stale fruit! But this class is largely at the mercy of the " hired man," or his more disagreeable development, the pretentious smatterer, who, so far from possessing the knowledge that the English, Scotch or German gardeners acquire in their long thorough training, is a compound of ignorance and prejudice. To hide his barrenness of mind he gives his soul to rare plants, clipped lawns, but stints the family in all things save his impudence. If he tells his obsequious employers that it is easier and cheaper to buy their fruit than to raise it, of course there is naught to do but go to the market and pick up what they can ; and yet Dr. Thurber says, with a vast deal of force, that " the unfortunate people who buy their fruit do not know what a strawberry is." In all truth and soberness, it is a marvel and a shame that so many sane people who profess to have passed beyond the habits of the wilderness will not give the attention required by these unexacting fruits. The man who The Fruit Garden. 21 has learned to write his name can learn to raise them successfully. The ladies who know how to keep their homes neat through the labors of their " intelligent help," could also learn to manage a fruit garden even though employing the stupidest oaf that ever blundered through life. The method is this : First learn how yourself, and then let your laborer thor- oughly understand that he gets no wages unless he does as he is told. In the complicated details of a plant farm there is much that needs constant supervision, but the work of an ordinary fruit garden is, in the main, straightforward and simple. The expenditure of a little time, money, and, above all things, of seasonable labor, is so abundantly repaid that one would think that bare self-interest would solve invariably the simple prob- lem of supply. As mere articles of food, these fruits are exceedingly valuable. They are capable of sustaining severe and continued labor. For months together we might become almost independent of butcher and doctor if we made our places produce all that nature permits. Purple grapes will hide unsightly buildings ; currants, raspberries and blackberries will grow along the fences and in the corners that are left to burdocks and brambles. I have known invalids to improve from the first day that berries were brought to the table, and thousands would exchange their sallow complexions, sick- headaches, and general ennui for a breezy interest in life and its abound- ing pleasures, if they would only take nature's palpable hint, and enjoy the seasonable food she provides. Belles can find better cosmetics in the fruit garden than on their toilet tables, and she who paints her cheeks with the pure, healthful blood that is made from nature's choicest gifts, and the exercise of gathering them, can give her lover a kiss that will make him wish for another. The famous Dr. Hosack, of New York city, who attended Alexander Hamilton after he received his fatal wound from Burr, was an enthusiast on the subject of fruits. It was his custom to terminate his spring course of lectures with a strawberry festival. " I must let the class see," he said, " that we are practical as well as theoretical. Linnaeus cured his gout and protracted his life by eating strawberries." " They are a dear article," a friend remarked, " to gratify the appetites of so many." " Yes, indeed," replied the doctor, " but from our present mode of culture they will become cheap." It is hard to realize how scarce this fruit was sixty or seventy years- ago, but the prediction of the sagacious physician has been verified even beyond his imagination. Strawberries are raised almost as abundantly 22 Success with Small Fruits. .as potatoes, and for a month or more can be eaten as a cheap and wholesome food by all classes, even the poorest. By a proper selection of varieties we, in our home, feast upon them six weeks together, and so might the majority of those whose happy lot is cast in the country. The small area of a city yard planted with a few choice kinds will often yield surprising returns under sensible culture. If we cultivate these beautiful and delicious fruits we always have the power of giving pleasure to others, and he 's a churl and she a pale reflection of Xantippe who does not covet this power. The faces of our guests brighten as they snuff from afar the delicate aroma. Our vines can furnish gifts that our friends will ever welcome ; and by means of their products we can pay a homage to genius that will be far more grateful than commonplace compliments. I have seen a letter from the Hon. Wm. C. Bryant, which is a rich return for the few strawberries that were sent to him, and the thought that they gave him pleasure gives the donor far more. They are a gift that one can bestow and .another take without involving any compromise on either side, since they belong to the same category as smiles, kind words and the universal freemasonry of friendship. Faces grow radiant over a basket of fruit or flowers that would darken with anger at other gifts. If, in the circle of our acquaintance, there are those shut up to the weariness and heavy atmosphere of a sick-room, in no way can we send a ray of sunlight athwart their pallid faces more effectually than by placing a basket of fragrant fruit on the table beside them. Even though the physician may render it "forbidden fruit," their eyes will feast upon it and the aroma will teach them that the world is not passing on, unheeding and uncaring whether they live or die. The Fruit and Flower Mission of New York is engaged in a beautiful and most useful charity. Into tenement-houses and the hot close wards of city hospitals, true sisters of mercy of the one Catholic church of love and kindness carry the fragrant emblems of an Eden that was lost, but may be regained even by those who have wandered farthest from its beauty and purity. Men and women, with faces seemingly hardened and grown rigid under the impress of vice, that but too correct!^ reveal the coarse and brutal nature within, often become wistful and tender over some simple flower or luscious fruit that recalls earlier and happier days. These are gifts which offend no prejudices, and inevitably suggest that which is good, sweet, wholesome and pure. For a moment, at least, and perhaps forever, they may lead stained and debased creatures to turn their faces heavenward. There are little suffering children also in the hospitals; The Fruit Garden. there are exiles from country homes and country life in the city who have been swept down not by evil but the dark tides of disaster, poverty and disease, and to such it is a privilege as well as a pleasure to send gifts that will tend to revive hope and courage. That we may often avail ourselves of these gracious opportunities of giving the equivalent of a " cup of cold water," we should plant fruits and flowers in abundance. 14- .;|H^ I • The New York Flower and Fruit Mission. — A Gift of Strawberries. One of the sad features of our time is the tendency of young people to leave their country homes. And too often one does not need to look far for the reason. Life at the farm-house sinks into deep ruts, and becomes weary plodding. There are too many "one-ideaed" farmers and farms. It is corn, potatoes, wheat, butter or milk. The staple production absorbs all thought and everything else is neglected. Nature demands that young people should have variety, and furnishes it in abundance, The stolid farmer too often ignores nature and the cravings of youth, and insists on the heavy monotonous work of his specialty, early and late, the year around, and then wonders why in his declining years there are no- 24 Success with Small Fruits. strong young hands to lighten his toil. The boy who might have lived a sturdy, healthful, independent life among his native hills is a bleached and sallow youth measuring ribbons and calicoes behind a city counter. The girl who might have been the mistress of a tree-shadowed country house disappears under much darker shadows in town. But for their The Home She Might Have Had. early home life, so meager and devoid of interest, they might have breathed pure air all their days. Not the least among the means of making a home attractive would be a well-maintained fruit garden. The heart and the stomach have been found nearer together by the metaphysicians than the physiologists, and if the " house mother," as the Germans say, beamed often at her children over a great dish of berries flanked by a pitcher of unskimmed milk, not only good blood and good feeling would be developed, but something that the poets call " early ties." There is one form of gambling or speculation that, within proper limits, is entirely innocent and healthful — the raising of new seedling fruits and the testing of new varieties. In these pursuits, the elements of chance, skill and judgment enter so evenly that they are an unfailing source of pleasurable excitement. The catalogues of plant, tree and seed The Fruit Garden. 25 dealers abound in novelties. The majority of them cannot endure the test of being grown by the side of our well-known standard kinds, but now and then an exceedingly valuable variety, remarkable for certain qualities or peculiarly adapted to special localities and uses, is developed. There is not only an unfailing pleasure in making these discoveries, but often a large profit. If, three or four years ago, a country boy had bought a dozen Sharpless strawberry plants, and propagated from them, he might now obtain several hundred dollars from their increased o numbers. Time only can show whether this novelty will become a standard variety, but at present the plants are in great demand. The young people of a country home may become deeply interested in originating new seedlings. A thousand strawberry seeds will produce a thousand new kinds, and, although the prospects are that none of them will equal those now in favor, something very fine and superior may be obtained. Be this as it may, if these simple natural interests prevent boys and girls from being drawn into the maelstrom of city life, until character is formed, each plant will have a value beyond silver or gold. One of the supreme rewards of human endeavor is a true home, and surely it is as stupid as it is wrong to neglect some of the simplest and yet most effectual means of securing this crown of earthly life. A home is the product of many and varied causes, but I have yet to see the man who will deny that delicious small fruits for eight months of the year and the richer pleasure even of cultivating and gathering them, may become one of the chief contributions to this result. I use the words " eight months " advisedly, for even now, January 29, we are enjoying grapes that were buried in the ground last October. I suppose my children are very material and unlike the good little people who do not live long, but they place a white mark against the days on which we unearth a jar of grapes. CHAPTER III. SMALL FRUIT FARMING AND ITS PROFITS. A FARM without a fruit garden may justly be regarded as proof of a low state of civilization in the farmer. No country home should be without such simple means of health and happiness. For obvious reasons, however, there is not, and never can be, the same room for fruit raising as there is for grain, grass, and stock farming. Nevertheless, the oppor- tunities to engage with profit in this industry on a large scale are increasing every year. From being a luxury of a few, the small fruits have become an article of daily food to the million. Even the country village must have its supply, and the number of crates that are shipped from New York city to neighboring towns is astonishingly large. As an illustration of the rapidly enlarging demand for these fruits, let us consider the experience of one Western city — Cincinnati. Mr. W. H. Corbly, who is there regarded as one of the best informed on these subjects, has gathered the following statistics: "In 1835 it was regarded as a most wonderful thing that loo bushels of strawberries could be disposed of on the Cincinnati market in one day, and was commented on as a great event. A close estimate shows that during the summer of 1879 eighty to eighty-five thousand bushels of strawberries were sold in Cincinnati. Of course, a large part of these berries were shipped away, but it is estimated that nearly one-half were consumed here. About the year 1838, the cultivation of black raspberries was com- menced in this county by James Gallagher and F. A. McCormick of Salem, Anderson township. The first year, Gallagher's largest shipment in one day was six bushels, and McCormick's four. When they were 26 Fruit Farming. 27 placed on the market, McCormick sold out at 6l/£ cents per quart, and Gallagher held off till McCormick had sold out, when he put his on sale and obtained 8^ cents per quart, and the demand was fully supplied. It is estimated that the crop for the year of 1879, handled in Cincinnati, amounted to from seventy-five thousand to eighty thousand bushels — the crop being a fairly good one — selling at an average of about $2 per bushel." It has been stated in the Country Gentleman that about $5,000,000 worth of small fruits were sold in Michigan in one year; and the same authority estimates that $25,000,000 worth are consumed annually in New York city. In the future, it would seem that this demand would increase even more rapidly ; for in every fruit-growing region immense canning establish- ments are coming into existence, to which the markets of the world are open. Therefore, in addition to the thousands already embarked in this industry, still larger numbers will engage in it during the next few years. Those who now for the first time are turning their attention toward this occupation may be divided mainly into two classes. The first consists of established farmers, who, finding markets within their reach, extend their patches of raspberries, currants, or strawberries to such a degree that they have a surplus to sell. To the extent that such sales are remunera- tive, they increase the area of fruits, until in many instances they become virtually fruit farmers. More often a few acres are devoted to horticulture, and the rest of the farm is carried on in the old way. The second class is made up chiefly of those who are unfamiliar with the soil and its culture — mechanics, professional men, who hope to regain health by coming back to nature, and citizens whose ill-success or instincts suggest country life and labors. From both these classes, and especially from the latter, I receive very many letters, containing all kinds of ques- tions. The chief burden on most minds, however, is summed up in the words, " Do small fruits pay ? " To meet the needs of these two classes is one of the great aims of this work ; and it is my most earnest wish not to mislead by high-colored pictures. Small fruits pay many people well ; and unless location, soil, or climate is hopelessly against one, the degree of profit will depend chiefly upon his skill, judgment, and industry. The raising of small fruits is like other callings in which some are getting rich, more earning a fair livelihood, and not a few failing. It is a business in which there is an abundance of sharp, keen competition ; and ignorance, poor judgment, and shiftless, idle ways will be as fatal as in the workshop, store, or office. Innumerable failures result from inexperience. I will give one extreme example, which may serve to illustrate the sanguine mental condition of 28 Success with Small km it*. many who read of large returns in fruit culture. A young man who had inherited a few hundred dollars wrote me that he could hire a piece of land for a certain amount, and he wished to invest the balance — every cent — in plants, thus leaving himself no capital with which to continue: operations, but expecting that a speedy crop would lift him at once into a prosperous career. I wrote that under the circumstances I could not supply him — that it would be about the same as robbery to do so; and advised him to spend several years with a practical and successful fruit- grower and learn the business. Most people enter upon this calling in the form of a wedge ; but only too many commence at the blunt end, investing largely at once in everything, and therefore their business soon tapers down to nothing. The wise begin at the point of the wedge and develop their calling naturally, healthfully ; learning, by experience and careful observation, how to grow fruits profitably, and which kinds pay the best. There ought also to be considerable capital to start with, and an absence of the crushing burden of interest money. No fruits yield any returns before the second or third year ; and there are often unfavorable seasons and glutted markets. Nature's prizes are won by patient, persistent industry, and not by Wall street sleight of hand. Location is very important. A fancy store, however well-furnished, would be a ruinous investment at a country cross-road. The fruit farm must be situated where there is quick and cheap access to good markets, and often the very best market may be found at a neighboring village, summer resort, or a canning establishment. Enterprise and industry,, however, seem to surmount all obstacles. The Rev. Mr. Knox shipped his famous " 700 " strawberry (afterward known to be the Jucunda, a foreign variety) from Pittsburg to New York, securing large returns ; and, take the country over, the most successful fruit farms seem to be located where live men live and work. Still, if one were about to purchase, sound judgment would suggest a very careful choice of locality with speedy access to good markets. Mr. J. J. Thomas, editor of the Country Gentleman, in a paper upon the Outlook of Fruit Culture, read before the Western N. Y. Horticultural Society, laid down three essentials to success. 1st. Locality — a region found by experience to be adapted to fruit growing. 2d. Wise selection of varieties of each kind. 3d. Care and culture of these varieties. He certainly is excellent authority. These obvious considerations, and the facts that have been instanced, make it clear that brains must unite with labor and capital. Above Fruit Fanning. 29- all, however, there must be trained, practical skill. Those succeed who learn how; and to add a little deftness to unskilled hands is the object of every succeeding page. At the same time, I frankly admit that nothing can take the place of experience. I once asked an eminent physician if a careful reading of the best medical text-books and thorough knowledge of the materia medica could take the place of daily study of actual disease and fit a man for practice, and he emphatically answered " No ! " It is equally true that an intelligent man can familiarize himself with every horticultural writer, from the classic age to our own, and yet be outstripped in success by an ignorant Irish laborer who has learned the little he knows in the school of experience. The probabilities are, however, that the laborer will remain such all his days, while the thoughtful, reading man, who is too sensible to be carried away by theories, and who supplements his science with experience, may enrich not only himself but the world. Still there is no doubt that the chances of success are largely in favor of the class I first named — -the farmers who turn their attention in part or wholly toward fruit growing. They are accustomed to hard out-of-door work and the general principles of agriculture. The first is always essential to success ; and a good farmer can soon become equally skillful in the care of fruits if he gives his mind to their culture. The heavy, stupid, prejudiced plodder who thinks a thing is right solely because his grandfather did it, is a bucolic monster that is receding so fast into remote wilds before the horticultural press that he scarcely need be taken into account. Therefore, the citizen or professional man inclined to engage in fruit farming should remember that he must compete with the hardy, intelligent sons of the soil, who, in most instances, are crowning their practical experience with careful reading. I do not say this to discourage any one, but only to secure a thoughtful and adequate consider- ation of the subject before the small accumulations of years are embarked in what may be a very doubtful venture. Many have been misled to heavy loss by enthusiastic works on horticulture ; I wish my little book to lead only to success. If white-handed, hollow-chested professional men anxious to acquire money, muscle and health by fruit raising — if citizens disgusted with pavements and crowds are willing to take counsel of common sense and learn the business practically and thoroughly, why should they not succeed? But let no one imagine that horticulture is the final resort of ignorance, indolence or incapacity, physical or mental. Impostors palm themselves off on the world daily ; a credulous public takes poisonous nostrums by the 3O Success with Small Fruits. ton and butt ; but nature recognizes error every time, and quietly thwarts those who try to wrong her, either willfully or blunderingly. Mr. Peter Henderson, who has been engaged practically in vegetable gardening for over a quarter of a century, states, as a result of his expe- rience, that capital, at the rate of $300 per acre, is required in starting a "truck farm," and that the great majority fail who make the attempt with less means. In my opinion, the fruit farmer would require capital in like proportion ; for, while many of the small fruits can be grown with less prep- aration of soil and outlay in manure, the returns come more slowly, since, with the exception of strawberries, none of them yield a full crop until the third or fourth year. I advise most urgently against the incurring of heavy debts. Better begin with three acres than thirty, or three hundred, from which a large sum of interest money must be obtained before a penny can be used for other purposes. Anything can be raised from a farm easier than a mortgage. Success depends very largely, also, on the character of the soil. If it is so high and dry as to suffer severely from drouth two years out of three, it cannot be made to pay except by irrigation ; if so low as to be wet, rather than moist, the prospects are but little better. Those who are per- manently settled must do their best with such land as they have, and in a later chapter I shall suggest how differing soils should be managed. To those who can still choose their location, I would recommend a deep mel- low loam, with a rather compact subsoil — moist, but capable of thorough drainage. Diversity of soil and exposure offer peculiar advantages also. Some fruits thrive best in a stiff clay, others in sandy upland. Early varieties ripen earlier on a sunny slope, while a late kind is rendered later on a northern hill-side, or in the partial shade of a grove. In treating each fruit and variety, I shall try to indicate the soils and exposures to which they are best adapted. Profits. The reader will naturally wish for some definite statements of the profits of fruit farming ; but I almost hesitate to comply with this desire. A gentleman wrote to me that he sold from an acre of Cuthbert raspber- ries $800 worth of fruit. In view of this fact, not a few will sit down and begin to figure — "If one acre yielded $800, ten acres would produce $8,000; twenty acres $16,000, &c. Multitudes have been led into trouble by this kind of reasoning. The capacity of an engine with a given motor power can be measured, and certain and unvarying results predicted ; but who can measure the resources of an acre through varying seasons and under differ- ing culture, or foretell the price of the crops? In estimating future profits, we can only approximate ; and the following records are given merely to Fruit Farming. 31 show what results have been secured, and therefore may be obtained again, and even surpassed. The Country Gentleman gives a well-authenticated instance of a fruit grower who " received more than $2,000 from three acres of strawberries." In contrast, however, it could be shown that many fields have not paid expenses. I once had such an experience. The market was " glutted," and the variety yielded berries so small and poor that they did not average five cents per quart. Occasionally, we hear of immense shipments from the South being thrown into the dock. Mr. William Parry, a veteran fruit grower in New Jersey, states the truth I wish to convey very clearly, and gives a fair mean between these two extremes : "YIELD AND PROFIT. " There are so many circumstances connected with strawberry growing, such as varieties, soil, climate, location, markets, and the skill and management of the grower, that the results of a few cases cannot be relied on for general rules. " We have grown over two hundred bushels per acre here, and realized upward of six hundred dollars per acre for the crop ; but that is much above the general average. Having kept a careful record, for fourteen years past, of the yield per acre and price per quart at which our strawberries have been sold, we find the average to be about 2,500 quarts per acre, and the price eleven cents per quart in market, giving the following results : Commissions, 10 per cent $27 . 50 Picking 2,500 quarts, at 2C. per quart 50 . oo Manure 1 7 . 50 Use of Baskets i o . oo Cultivation, etc 25 . oo Net profits per acre 145 . oo Gross proceeds, 2,500 quarts at nc $275.00" In the year 1876, the same gentleman had ten acres of Brandy wine raspberries that yielded about 82 bushels to the acre, giving a clear profit of $280, or of $2,800 for the entire area. This crop, so far from being the average, was awarded a premium as the most profitable that year in the section. J. R. Gaston & Sons, of Normal, 111., have given the following record of a plantation of Snyder blackberries : " We commenced to pick a field of seven acres July I2th, and finished picking August 22d. The total amount gathered was 43,575 quarts, equal to 1,361 bushels and 22 quarts. The average price was eight cents per quart, making the gross 32 Success with Small Fruits. proceeds equal to $3,486. We paid for picking $43575- The cost of trimming and cultivating was about $400; cost of boxes, crates and marketing was $1,307.25, leaving a net profit of $1,343." A gentleman in Ulster Co., N. Y., stated that 200 bushes of the Cherry currant yielded him in one season 1,000 Ibs. of fruit, which was sold at an average of eight cents per pound. His gross receipts were $80 from one-fourteenth of an acre, and at the same ratio an acre would have yielded $1,120. Is this an average yield? So far from it, there are many acres of currants and gooseberries that do not pay expenses. Thus it can be seen that the scale ranges from marvelous prizes down to blanks and heavy losses ; but the drawing is not a game of chance, but usually the result of skill and industry, or their reverse. Tools for a Strawberry Farm. » I might have given many examples of large, and even enormously large, profits obtained under exceptional circumstances ; but they tend to mislead. I write for those whose hearts prompt them to co-work with nature, and who are most happy when doing her bidding in the breezy fields and gardens, content with fair rewards, instead of being consumed by the gambler's greed for unearned gold. At the same time, I am decidedly in favor of high culture, and the most generous enriching of the soil ; convinced that fruit growers and farmers in general would make far more money if they spent upon one acre what they usually expend on three. In a later chapter will be found an instance of an expenditure of $350 Per acre on strawberry land, and the net profits obtained were proportionately large. CHAPTER IV. STRAWBERRIES — THE FIVE SPECIES AND THEIR HISTORY. THE conscientious Diedrich Knickerbocker, that venerated historian from whom all good citizens of New York obtain the first impres- sions of their ancestry, felt that he had no right to chronicle the vicissitudes of Manhattan Island until he had first accounted for the universe of which it is a part. Equally with the important bit of land named, the strawberry belongs to the existing cosmos, and might be traced back to "old chaos." I hasten to re-assure the dismayed reader. I shall not presume to follow one who could illumine his page with genius, and whose extensive learning enabled him to account for the universe, not merely in one but in half a dozen ways. It is the tendency of the present age to ask what is, not what has been or shall be. And yet, on the part of some, as they deliberately enjoy a saucer of strawberries and cream, — it is a pleasure that we prolong for obvious reasons, — a languid curiosity may arise as to the origin and history of so delicious a fruit. I suppose Mr. Darwin would say, "it was evolved." But some specimens between our lips suggest that a Geneva watch could put itself together quite as readily. At the same time, it must be said that our " rude forefathers" did not eat Monarch or Charles Downing strawberries. In few fruits, probably, have there been such vast changes or improvements as in this. Therefore, I shall answer briefly and as well as I can, in view of the meager data 5 33 34 Success with Small Fruits. and conflicting opinions of the authorities, the curiosity that I have imagined on some faces. Those who care only for the strawberry of to-day can easily skip a few pages. If there were as much doubt about a crop of this fruit as concern- ing the origin of its name, the outlook would be dismal, indeed. In old Saxon, the word was strea^vberige or streowberrie ; and was so named, says one authority, " from the straw- like stems of the plant, or from the berries lying strewn upon the ground." Another authority tells us: " It is an old English practice " (let us hope a modern one also) " to lay straw between the rows to preserve the fruit from rotting on the wet ground, from which the name has been supposed to be derived ; although more probably it is from the wandering habit of the plant, straw being a corruption of the Anglo-Saxon stra, from which we have the English verb stray." Again, tradition asserts that in the olden times children strung the berries on straws for sale, and hence the name. Several other causes have been suggested, but I forbear. I have never known, however, a person to decline the fruit on the ground of this obscurity and doubt. (Controversialists and skeptics please take note.) That the strawberry should belong to the rose family, and that its botanical name should be fragaria, from the Latin fragro, to smell sweetly, will seem both natural and appropriate. While for his knowledge of the plant I refer the reader to every hill- side and field (would that I might say, to every garden !), there is a pecul- iarity in the production of the fruit which should not pass unnoted. Strictly speaking, the small seeds scattered over the surface of the berry are the fruit, and it is to perfect these seeds that the plants blossom, the stamens scatter, and the pistils receive the pollen on the convex recepta- cle, which, as the seeds ripen, greatly enlarges, and becomes the pulpy and delicious mass that is popularly regarded as the fruit. So far from being the fruit, it is only "the much altered end of the stem" that sustains the fruit or seeds ; and so it becomes a beautiful illustration of a kindly, genuine courtesy, which renders an ordinary service with so much grace and graciousness that we dwell on the manner with far more pleasure than on the service itself. The innumerable varieties of strawberries that are now in existence appear, either in their character or origin, to belong to five great and quite Strawberries — Origin and History. 35 •distinct species. The first, and for a long time the only one of which we have any record, is the Fragaria Vesca, or the Alpine strawberry. It is one of the most widely spread fruits of the world, for it grows, and for centuries has grown, wild through- out Northern and Central Europe and Asia, following the mountains far to the south ; and on this conti- nent, from time immemorial, the Indian children have gathered it from the Northern Atlantic to the Pacific. In England this species •exhibits some variation from the Alpine type, and was called by our ancestors the Wood strawberry. The chief difference between the two is in the form of the fruit, the Wood varieties being round and the Alpine conical. They are also subdivided into white and red, annual and monthly varieties, and those that produce no runners, which are known to-day as Bush Alpines. The Alpine, as we find it growing wild, was the strawberry of the ancients. It is to it that the suggestive lines of Virgil refer, " Ye boys that gather flowers and strawberries, Lo, hid within the grass an adder lies." The Alpine Strawberry ( Fragaria Vesca). J.FRANK JIMGLI»G-SE There is no proof, I believe, that the strawberry was cultivated during any of the earlier civilizations. Some who wrote most explicitly con- 36 Success with Small Fruits. cerning the fruit culture of their time do not mention it ; and Virgil, Ovid, and Pliny name it but casually, and with no reference to its cultivation. It may appear a little strange that. the luxurious Romans, who fed on night- ingales' tongues, peacocks' brains, and scoured earth and air for delicacies, should have given but little attention to this fruit Possibly they early learned the fact that this species is essentially a wildling, and, like the trail- ing arbutus, thrives best in its natural haunts. The best that grew could be gathered from mountain-slopes and in the crevices of rocks. Moreover, those old revelers became too wicked and sensual to relish Alpine straw- berries. Its congener, the Wood strawberry, was the burden of one of the London street cries 400 years ago ; and to-day the same cry, in some language or other, echoes around the northern hemisphere as one of the inevitable and welcome sounds of spring and early summer. But few, perhaps, associate this lowly little fruit, that is almost as delicate and shy as the anemone, with tragedy ; and yet its chief poetical associations are among the darkest and saddest that can be imagined. Shakspeare's mention of the strawberry in the play of Richard III. was an unconscious but remarkable illustration of the second line already quoted from Virgil : " Lo, hid* within the grass an adder lies." The bit of history which is the occasion of this allusion is given in the quaint old English of Sir Thomas More, who thus describes the entrance to the Council of the terrible " Protector," from whom nothing good or sacred could be protected. He came " fyrste about IX of the clocker saluting them curtesly, and excusing himself that he had been from them so long, saieing merily that he had been a slepe that day. And after a little talking with them he said unto the bishop of Elye, my lord, You have very good strawberries at your gardayne in Holberne, I require you let us have a messe of them." He who has raised fine fruit will know how eagerly the flattered bishop obeyed. According to the poet, the dis- sembler also leaves the apartment, with his unscrupulous ally, Buckingham. " Where is my lord protector ? I have sent For these strawberries," said the Bishop of Ely, re-entering. Lord Hastings looks around with an air of general congratulation, and remarks : " His grace looks cheerfully and smooth this morning; There 's some conceit or other likes him well." Strawberries — Origin and History. 37 The serpent is hidden, but very near. A moment later, Gloster enters, black as night, hisses his monstrous charge, and before noon of that same day poor Hastings is a headless corpse. Far more sad and pitiful are the scenes recalled by the words of the fiendish lago — type for all time of those who transmute love into jealousy : " Tell me but this— Have you not sometimes seen a handkerchief, Spotted with strawberries, in your wife's hand?" " I gave her such a one; 't was my first gift," was the answer of a man whom the world will never forgive, in spite of his immeasurable remorse. From the poet Spencer we learn that to go a-strawberrying was one of the earliest pastimes of the English people. In the " Faerie Queen " we find these lines : " One day, as they all three together went To the green wood to gather strawberries, There chaunst to them a dangerous accident." Very old, too, is the following nursery rhyme, which, nevertheless, suggests the true habitat of the F. Vesca species : " The man of the wilderness asked me, How many strawberries grew in the sea ; I answered him, as I thought good, 'As many red herrings as grew in the wood.' " The ambrosial combination of strawberries and cream was first named by Sir Philip Sidney. Old Thomas Tusser, of the i6th century, in his work, " Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry united to as many of Good Housewifery," turns the strawberry question over to his wife, and doubtless it was in better hands than his, if his methods of culture were as rude as his poetry : " Wife, into the garden, and set me a plot With strawberry roots, of the best to be got ; Such, growing abroad, among thorns in the wood, Well chosen and picked, prove excellent good." Who " Dr. Boteler " was, or what he did, is unknown, but he made a sententious remark which led Izaak Walton to give him immortality in his work, " The Compleat Angler." " Indeed, my good schollar," the serene Izaak writes, " we may say of angling as Dr. Boteler said of 38 Success with Small Fruits. strawberries, ' Doubtless God could have made a better berry, but doubt- less God never did ;' and so, if I might be judge, God never did make a more calm, quiet, innocent recreation than angling." If this was true of the wild Wood strawberry, how much more so of many of our aromatic rubies of to-day. John Parkinson, the apothecary- gardener of London, whose quaint work was published in 1629, is not so enthusiastic. He says of the wild strawberry : " It may be eaten or chewed in the mouth without any man- ner of offense ; it is no great bearer, but those it doth beare are set at the toppes of the stalks, close together, pleasant to behold, and fit for a Gen- tlewoman to wear on her arme, &c., as a raritie instead of a flower." In England, the strawberry leaf is part of the insignia of high rank, since it appears in the coronets of a duke, marquis and earl. " He aspires to the strawberry^leaves " is a well-known phrase abroad, and the idea occurs several times in the novels of Disraeli, the present British Premier. Thackeray, in his " Book of Snobs," writes : " The strawberry leaves on her chariot panels are engraved on her ladyship's heart." After all, perhaps it is not strange that the Alpine species should be allied to some dark memories, for it was the only kind known when the age was darkened by passion and crime. The one other allusion to the strawberry in Shakspeare is peculiarly appropriate to the species under consideration. In the play of Henry V., an earlier Bishop of Ely says : " The strawberry grows underneath the nettle, And wholesome berries thrive and ripen best Neighbored by fruit of baser quality." And this, probably, is still true, for the Alpine and Wood strawberries tend to reproduce themselves with such unvarying exactness that cultiva- tion makes but little difference. All these allusions apply to the F. Vesca or Alpine species, arid little advance was made in strawberry culture in Europe until after the introduction of other species more capable of variation and improvement. Still, attempts were made from time to time. As the Alpine differed somewhat from the Wood strawberry, they were brought to England about 200 years later than the tragedy of Lord Hastings' death, which has been referred to. In connection with the White and Red Wood and Alpine straw- berries, we find in 1623 the name of the HAUTBOIS or Haarbeer straw- berry, the Fragaria elatior of the botanists. This second species, a native Strawberries — Origin and History. 39 Hautbois or Haarbeer Strawberry (Fragaria Rlatior). of Germany, resembles the Alpine in some respects, but is a larger and stockier plant. Like the fragaria vesca, its fruit- stalks are erect and longer than the leaves, but the* latter are larger than the foliage of the Alpine, and are covered with short hairs, both on the upper and under surface, which give them a rough appearance. As far as I can learn, this species still further resembled the Alpines in pos- sessing little capability of im- provement and variation. Even at this late day the various named kinds are said to differ from each other but slightly. There is a very marked contrast, however, between the fruit of the Hautbois and Alpine species, for the former has a peculiar musky flavor which has never found much favor in this country. It is, therefore, a comparatively "rare, fruit in our gardens, nor do we find much said of it in the past. There is scarcely any record of progress until after the introduction of the two great American species. It is true that in 1660 a fruit grower at Montreuil, France, is " said to have produced a new variety from the seed of the Wood strawberry," which was called "the Cappron," and afterward the "Fressant." It was named as a distinct variety 100 years later, but it may be doubted whether it differed greatly from its parent. Be this as it may, it is said to be the first improved variety of which there is any record. Early in the i/th century, intercourse with this continent led to the introduction of the most valuable species in existence, the VlRGIN- IAN strawberry (Fragaria Virgin- iana), which grows wild from the Arctic regions to Florida, and westward to the Rocky Mount- ains. It is first named in the catalogue of Jean Robin, botanist to Louis XIIL, in 1624. During the first century of its career in England, it was not appreciated, Common Wild Strawberry (Fra^-ia Virginian* ). but as its wonderful Capacity for 4O Success with Small Fruits. variation and improvement — in which it formed so marked a contrast to the Wood strawberry — was discovered, it began to receive the attention it deserved. English gardeners learned the* fact, of which we are making so much to-day, that by simply sowing its seeds, new and possibly better varieties could be produced. From that time and forward, the tendency has increased to originate, name and send out innumerable seedlings, the majority of which soon pass into oblivion, while a few survive and become popular, usually in proportion to their merit. The Fragaria Virginiana, therefore, the common wild strawberry that is found in all parts of North America east of the Rocky Mountains, is the parent of nine-tenths of the varieties grown in our gardens; and its improved descendants furnish nearly all of the strawberries of our markets. As we have seen, the Fragaria Vesca, or the Alpine species of Europe, is substantially the same to-day as it was a thousand years ago. But the capacity of the Virginian strawberry for change and improvement is shown by those great landmarks in the American culture of this fruit — the pro- duction of Hovey's Seedling by C. M. Hovey, of Cambridge, Mass., forty- five years since ; of the Wilson's Albany Seedling, originated by John Wil- son, of Albany, N. Y., about twenty-five years ago, and, in our own time, of the superb varieties, Monarch of the West, Seth Boyden, Charles Downing, and Sharpless. As in the Alpine species there are two distinct strains, — the Alpine of the Continent, and the Wood strawberry of England, — so in the wild Vir- ginian species there are two branches of the family, — the Eastern and the Western. The differences are so marked that some writers have asserted that there are two species ; but we have the authority of Prof. Gray for saying that the Western, or Fragaria Illincensis, is "perhaps" a distinct species, and he classifies it as only a very marked variety. There are but two more species of the strawberry genus. Of the first of these, the Fragaria Indica, or Indian strawberry, there is little to say. It is a native of Northern India, and differs so much from the other species that it was formerly named as a distinct genus. It has yellow flowers, and is a showy house-plant, especially for window-baskets, but the fruit is dry and tasteless. It is said by Prof. Gray to have escaped cultivation and become wild in some localities of this country. Fragaria Chilensis is the last great species or subdivision that we now have to consider. Like the F. Virginiana, it is a native of the American continent, and yet we have learned to associate it almost wholly with Europe. It grows wild on the Pacific slope, from Oregon to Chili, creep- ing higher and higher up the mountains as its habitat approaches the Strawberries — Origin and History to Indian Strawberry (Fragaria Indica). ?equator. " It is a large, robust species, with very firm, thick leaflets, soft and silky on the under side." The flowers are larger than in the other species ; the fruit, also, in its native condition, averages much larger, stands erect instead of hanging, ripens late, is rose- colored, firm and sweet in flesh, and does not require as much heat to develop its saccharine constituents ; but it lacks the peculiar sprightliness and aroma of the Virginia strawberry. It has become, however, the favorite stock of the European gardeners, and seems better adapted to transatlantic climate and soil than to ours. The first mention of the Fragaria Ckilensis, or South American strawberry, says Mr. Fuller, " is by M. Frezier, who, in 1716, in his journey to the South Sea, found it at the foot of the Cordillera mountains near Quito, and carried it home to Marseilles, France." At that time it was called the Chili strawberry, and the Spaniards said that they brought it from Mexico. From Mr. W. Collett Sandars, an English antiquarian, I learn that seven plants were shipped from Chili and were kept alive during the voyage by water which M. Frezier saved from his allowance, much limited owing to a shortness of supply. He gave two of the plants to M. de Jessieu, " who cultivated them with fair success in the royal gar- dens." In 1727, the Chili straw- berry was introduced to England, but not being understood, it did not win much favor. Mr. Fuller further states : "We Fragaria Chilensis. do not learn from any of the old French works that new varieties were raised from the Chili strawberry for at least fifty years after its introduc- 6 42 Success with Small Fruits. tion. Duchesne, in 1766, says that "Miller considered its cultivation abandoned in England on account of. its sterility. The importations from other portions of South America appear to have met with better success ; and, early in the present century, new varieties of the F. Chilensis, as well as of the Virginiana, became quite abundant in England and on the Continent" If we may judge from the characteristics of the varieties imported to this country of late years, the South American species has taken the lead decidedly abroad, and has become the parent stock from which foreign cult- urists, in the main, are seeking to develop the ideal strawberry. But in all its transformations, and after all the attempts to infuse into it the sturdier life of the Virginian strawberry, it still remembers its birthplace ; and falters and often dies in the severe cold of our winters, or, what is still worse, the heat and drouth of our summers. As a species, it requires the high and careful culture that they are able and willing to give it in Europe. The majority of imported varieties have failed in the United States, but a few have become justly popular in regions where they can be grown. The Triomphe de Gand may be given as an example, and were I restricted to one variety I should take this. The Jucunda, also, is one of the most superb berries in existence ; and can be grown with great profit in many localities. Thus the two great species which .to-day are furnishing ninety-nine- hundredths of the strawberries of commerce and of the garden, both in this country and abroad, came from America, the Fragaria Chilensis reaching our Eastern States by the way of Europe, and in the form of the improved and cultivated varieties that have won a name abroad. We are crossing the importations with our own native stock. President Wilder's superb seedling, which has received his name, is an example of this blending process. This berry is a child of the La Constante and Hovey's Seedling, and, therefore, in this one beautiful and most delicious variety we have united the characteristics of the two chief strawberry species of the world, the F. Virginiana and F. Chilensis. It will be seen that the great law of race extends even to strawberry plants. As in the most refined and cultivated peoples there is a strain of the old native stock, which ever remains a source of weakness or strength, and will surely show itself in certain emergencies, so the superb new varieties of strawberries, the latest products of horticultural skill, speedily indicate in the rough-and-tumble of ordinary culture whether they have derived their life from the hardy F. Virginiana or the tender and fas- tidious F. Chilensis. The Monarch of the West and the Jucunda are the Strawberries — Origin and History. 43 patricians of the garden, and on the heavy portions of my land at Corn- wall I can scarcely say to which I give the preference. But the Monarch is Anglo-Saxon and the Jucunda is of a Latin race ; or to drop meta- phor, the former comes of a species that can adapt itself to conditions extremely varied, and even very unfavorable, and the latter cannot. CHAPTER V. IDEAL STRAWBERRIES VERSUS THOSE OF THE FIELD AND MARKET. are certain strong, coarse-feeding vegetables, like corn and -L potatoes, that can be grown on the half-subdued and comparatively poor soil of the field ; but no gardener would think of planting the finer and more delicate sorts in such situations. There are but few who do not know that they can raise cauliflowers and egg-plants only on deep, rich land. The parallel holds good with this fruit. There are straw- berries that will grow almost anywhere, and under any circumstances, and there is another class that demands the best ground and culture ; but from the soil of a good garden, with a little pains, we can obtain the finest fruit in existence, and there is no occasion to plant those kinds which are grown for market solely because they are productive, and hard enough to endure carriage for a long distance. The only transportation to be considered is from the garden to the table, and there- fore we can make table qualities our chief concern. If our soil is light and sandy, we can raise successfully one class of choice, high-flavored varieties ; if heavy, another class. Many worry over a forlorn, weedy bed of some inferior variety that scarcely gives a week's supply, when, with no more trouble than is required to obtain a crop of celery, large delicious berries might be enjoyed daily, for six weeks together, from twenty different kinds. The strawberry of commerce is a much more difficult problem. The present unsatisfactory condition of affairs was admirably expressed in the Ideal and Market Strawberries. 45 following editorial in the Evening Post, the I2th June, 1876, from the pen of the late William Cullen Bryant: STRAWBERRIES. " In general, an improvement has been observed of late in the quality of fruit. We have more and finer varieties of the apple ; the pear is much better in general than it was ten years since; of the grape there are many new and excellent varieties which the market knew nothing of a few years ago, and there are some excellent varieties of the raspberry lately introduced. But the strawberry has decidedly deteriorated, and the result is owing to the general culture of Wilson's Albany for the market. Wilson's Albany is a sour, crude berry, which is not fully ripe when it is perfectly red, and even when perfectly ripe is still too acid. t When it first makes its appearance in the market, it has an exceedingly harsh flavor and very little of the agreeable aroma which distinguishes the finer kinds of the berry. If not eaten very sparingly, it disagrees with the stomach, and you wake with a colic the next morning. Before Wilson's strawberry came into vogue, there were many other kinds which were sweeter and of a more agreeable flavor. But the Wilson is a hard berry, which bears transportation well; it is exceedingly prolific and altogether hardy — qualities which give it great favor with the cultivator, but for which the consumer suffers. The proper way of dealing in strawberries is to fix the prices according to the quality of the sort. This is the way they do in the markets of Paris. A poor sort, although the berry may be large, is sold cheap ; the more delicate kinds — the sweet, juicy and high-flavored — are disposed of at a higher price. Here the Wilson should be sold the cheapest of all, while such as the Jucunda and the President Wilder should bear a price corresponding to their excellence. We hope, for our part, that the Wilsons will, as soon as their place can be supplied by a better berry, be banished from the market. It can surely be no difficult thing to obtain a sort by crossing, which shall bear transpor- tation equally well, and shall not deceive the purchaser with the appearance of ripeness." The reader will perceive that Mr. Bryant has portrayed both the evil and the remedy. The public justly complains of the strawberry of commerce, but it has not followed the suggestion in the editorial and demanded a better article, even though it must be furnished at a higher price. In spite, however, of all that is said and written annually against the Wilson, it still maintains its supremacy as the market berry. Those who reside near the city and can make, to some extent, special arrangements with enlightened customers, find other varieties more profitable, even though the yield from them is less, and some are lost from lack of keeping qualities. But those who send from a considerable distance, and must take their chances in the general market, persist in raising the " sour, crude berry," which is red before it is ripe, and hard enough to 46 Success ivit/i Small Fruits. stand the rough usage which it is almost certain to receive from the hands through which it passes. I do not expect to see the day when the Wilson, or some berry like it, is not the staple supply of the market; although I hope and think it will be improved upon. But let it be understood generally that they are Wilsons — the cheap vin ordinaire of strawberries. Cities will ever be flooded with varieties that anybody can grow under almost any kind of culture ; and no doubt it is better that there should be an abundance of such fruit rather than none at all. But a delicately organized man, like Mr. Bryant, cannot eat them ; and those who have enjoyed the genuine strawberries of the garden will not. The number of people, however, with the digestion of an ostrich, is enormous, and in multitudes of homes Wilsons, even when half-ripe, musty and stale, are devoured with unalloyed delight, under the illusion that they are strawberries. If genuine strawberries are wanted, the purchaser must demand them, pay for them, and refuse "sour, crude berries." The remedy is solely in the hands of the consumers. If people would pay no more for Seckel than for Choke pears, Choke pears would be the only ones in market, for they can be furnished with the least cost and trouble. It is the lack of discrimination that leaves our markets so bare of fine-flavored fruit. What the grower and the grocer are seeking is a hard berry, which, if not sold speedily, will " keep over." Let citizens clearly recognize the truth — that there are superb, delicious berries, like the Triomphe, Monarch, Charles Downing, Boyden, and many others, and insist on being supplied with them, just as they insist on good butter and good meats, and the problem is solved. The demand will create the supply ; the fruit merchant will write to his country correspondents : " You must send fine-flavored berries. My trade will not take any others, and I can return you more money for half the quantity of fruit if it is good." The most stolid of growers would soon take such a hint. Moreover, let the patrons of high-priced hotels and restaurants indignantly order away " sour, crude berries," as they would any other inferior viand, and caterers would then cease to palm off Wilsons for first-class strawberries. If these suggestions were carried out generally, the character of the New- York strawberry market would speedily be changed. It is my impression that, within a few years, only those who are able to raise large, fine-flavored fruit will secure very profitable returns. Moreover, we are in a transition state in respect to varieties, and there are scores of new kinds just coming before the public, of which wonderful things are claimed. I shall test nearly a hundred of these during the coming season, but am satisfied in advance lacal and Market Strawberries. 47 that nine-tenths of them will be discarded within a brief period. Indeed, I doubt whether the ideal strawberry, that shall concentrate every excel- lence within its one juicy sphere, ever will be discovered or originated. We shall always have to make a choice, as we do in friends, for their several good qualities and their power to please our individual tastes. The Strawberry of Memory. There is, however, one perfect strawberry in existence, — the straw- berry of memory, — the little wildlings that we gathered, perhaps, with those over whom the wild strawberry is now growing. We will admit no fault in it, and, although we may no longer seek for this favorite fruit of our childhood, with the finest specimens of the garden before us we sigh for those berries that grew on some far-off hill- side in years still farther away. CHAPTER VI. CHOICE OF SOIL AND LOCATION. THE choice that Tobias Hobson imposed on his patrons when he compelled them to take " the horse nearest to the stable-door" or none at all, is one that, in principle, we often have to make in selecting our strawberry-ground. We must use such as we have, or raise no berries. And yet it has been said that " with no other fruit do soil and locality make so great differences." While I am inclined to think that this is truer of the raspberry, it is also thoroughly established that location and the native qualities of the soil are among the first and chief considerations in working out the problem of success with strawberries. Especially should such forethought be given in selecting a soil suited to the varieties we wish to raise. Dr. Thurber, editor American Agri- culturist, states this truth emphatically. In August, 1875, he wrote: " All talk about strawberries must be with reference to particular soils. As an illustration of this, there were exhibited in our office windows several successive lots of the ' Monarch of the West,' which were immense as to size and wonderful as to productiveness. This same ' Monarch ' behaved in so unkingly a manner on our grounds (very light and sandy in their nature) that he would have been deposed had we not seen these berries, for it was quite inferior to either ' Charles Downing,' ' Seth Boyden,' or ' Kentucky.'" It is a generally admitted fact that the very best soil, and the one adapted to the largest number of varieties, is a deep sandy loam, moist, Strawberries — Soil — Location. 49 but not wet, in its natural state. All the kinds with which I am acquainted will do well on such land if it is properly deepened and enriched. There- fore, we should select such ground if we have it on our places, and those proposing to buy land with a view to this industry would do well to secure from the start one of the best conditions of success. It is of vital importance that our strawberry fields be near good ship- ping facilities, and that there be sufficient population in the immediate vicinity to furnish pickers in abundance. It will be far better to pay a much higher price for land — even inferior land — near a village and a rail- road depot, than to attempt to grow these perishable fruits in regions too remote. A water communication with market is, of course, preferable to any other. Having considered the question of harvesting and shipping to market, then obtain the moist, loamy land described above, if possible. Such ground will make just as generous and satisfactory returns in the home garden, and by developing its best capabilities the amateur can attain results that will delight his heart and amaze his neighbors. Shall the fact that we have no such soil, and cannot obtain it, dis- courage us ? Not at all ! There are choice varieties that will grow in the extremes of sand or clay. More effort will be required, but skill and information can still secure success ; and advantages of location, climate, and nearness to good markets may more than counterbalance natural deficiencies in the land. Besides, there is almost as solid a satisfaction in transforming a bit of the wilderness into a garden as in reforming and educating a crude or evil specimen of humanity. Therefore, if one finds himself in an unfavorable climate, and shut up to the choice of land the reverse of a deep, moist, sandy loam, let him pit his brain and muscle against all obstacles. If the question were asked, Is there anything that comes from the garden better liked than a dish of strawberries? in nine instances out of ten the answer would be, " nothing," even though sour Wilsons were grown ; and yet, too often the bed is in a neglected corner and half shaded by trees, while strong-growing vegetables occupy the moist, open spaces. It is hardly rational to put the favorite of the garden where, at best, a partial failure is certain. Let it be well understood that strawberries cannot be made to do well on ground exhausted by the roots and covered by the shade of trees. On many farms and even in some gardens there are several varieties of soil. Within the area of an acre I have a sandy loam, a gravelly hill- side, low, black, alluvial land, and a very stiff, cold, wet clay. Such diversity does not often occur within so limited a space, but on multi- 7 50 Success with Small Fruits. tudes of places corresponding differences exist. In such instances, conditions suited to every variety can be found, and reading and experience will teach the cultivator to locate his several kinds just where they will give the best results. Moreover, by placing early kinds on warm, sunny slopes, and giving late varieties moist, heavy land and cool, northern exposures, the season of this delicious fruit can be pro- longed greatly. The advantage of a long-continued supply for the family is obvious, but it is often even more important to those whose income is dependent on this industry. It frequently occurs that the market is "glutted" with berries for a brief time in the height of the season. If the crop matures in the main at such a time, the one chance of the year passes, leaving but a small margin of profit ; whereas,, if the grower had prolonged his season, by a careful selection of soils as well as of varieties, he might sell a large portion of his fruit when it was scarce and high. Climate also is a very important consideration, and enters largely into the problem of success from Maine to Southern California. Each region has its advantages and disadvantages, and these should be esti- mated before the purchaser takes the final steps which commit him to a locality and methods of culture which may not prove to his taste. In the far North, sheltered situations and light, warm land should be chosen for the main crop ; but in our latitude, and southward, it should always be our aim to avoid that hardness and dryness of soil that cut short the crops and hopes of so many cultivators. CHAPTER VII. PREPARING AND ENRICHING THE SOIL. HAVING from choice or necessity decided on the ground on which our future strawberries are to grow, the next step is to prepare the soil. The first and most natural question will be, What is the chief need of this plant ? Many prepare their ground in a vague, indefinite way. Let us prepare for strawberries. Whether it grows North or South, East or West, the strawberry plant is the same, and has certain constitutional traits and requirements, which should be thoroughly fixed in our minds. Modifications of treat- ment made necessary by various soils and climates are then not only •easily learned but also easily understood. When asked, on one occasion, what was the chief requirement in successful strawberry culture, Hon. Marshall P. Wilder replied substan- tially in the following piquant manner : " In the first place, the strawberry's chief need is a great deal of water." " In the second place, it needs more water.'* "In the third place, I think I would give it a great deal more water." The more extended and full my experience becomes, the less exag- geration I find in his words. The following strong confirmation of President Wilder's opinion may be found in Thompson's Gardener's Assistant, a standard English work : 51 52 Success with Small Fruits. " Ground that is apt to get very dry from the effects of only ten days' or a fortnight's drought is not suitable, on account of the enormous quantity of water that will be necessary ; and if once the plants begin to flag for want of moisture, the crop is all but lost. A soil that is naturally somewhat moist, but not too wet, answers well ; and where the land has admitted of irrigation, we have seen heavy crops produced every year." If this be true in England, with its humid climate, how much more emphatically should we state the importance of this requirement in our land of long droughts and scorching suns. Moisture, then, is the strawberry's first and chief need. Without it, the best fertilizers become injurious rather than helpful. Therefore, in the preparation of the soil and its subsequent cultivation, there should be a constant effort to secure and maintain moisture, and the failure to do this is the chief cause of meager crops. And yet, very probably, the first step absolutely necessary to accomplish this will be a thorough system of underdrainage. I have spent hundreds of dollars in such labors, and it was as truly my object to enable the ground to endure drought as to escape undue wetness. Let it be understood that it is moist and not wet land that the strawberry requires. If water stands or stagnates upon or a little below the surface, the soil becomes sour, heavy, lifeless ; and, if clay is present, it will bake like pottery in dry weather and suggest the Slough of Despond in wet. Disappointment, failure and miasma are the certain products of such unregenerate regions, but, as is often the case with repressed and troublesome people, the evil traits of such soils result from a lack of balance, and a perversion of what is good. The underdrain restores the proper equilibrium ; the brush-hook and axe cut away the rank unwholesome growth which thrives best in abnor- mal conditions. Sun, air and purifying frosts mellow and sweeten the damp, heavy, malarious ground, as the plowshare lift's it out of its low estate. A swamp, or any approach to one, is like a New York tenement house district, and requires analogous treatment. If, however, we have mellow upland with natural drainage, let us first put that in order that we may have a remunerative crop as soon as possi- ble. In suggesting, therefore, the best methods of preparing and enriching the ground, I will begin by considering soils that are already in the most favorable conditions, and that require the least labor and outlay. Man received his most essential agricultural instruction in the opening chapter of Genesis, wherein he is commanded to " subdue the earth." Even the mellow Western prairie is at first a wild, untamed thing that must be subdued. This is often a simple process, and in our gardens and the Preparing and Enriching the Soil. 53 greater part of many farms has already been practically accomplished. Where the deep, moist loam, just described, exists, the fortunate owner has only to turn it up to the sun and give it a year of ordinary cultivation, taking from it, in the process, some profitable hoed crop, that will effect- ually kill the grass, and his land is ready for strawberries. If his ground is in condition to give a good crop of corn, it will also give a fair crop of berries. If the garden is so far "subdued" as to yield kitchen vegetables, the strawberry may be planted at once, with the prospect of excellent returns, unless proper culture is neglected. Should the reader be content with mediocrity, there is scarcely any- thing to be said where the conditions are so favorable. But suppose one is not content with mediocrity. Then this highly favored soil is but the vant- age-ground from which skill enters on a course of thorough preparation and high culture. A man may plow, harrow and set with strawberries the land that was planted the previous year in corn, and probably secure a remunerative return, with little more trouble or cost than was expended on the corn. Or, he may select half the area that was in corn, plow it deeply in October, and if he detects traces of the white grub, cross-plow it again just as the ground is beginning to freeze. Early in the spring he can cover the surface with some fertilizer — there is nothing better than a rotted com- post of muck and barn-yard manure — at the proportion of forty or fifty tons to the acre. Plow and cross-plow again, and in each instance let the first team be followed by a subsoil or lifting plow, which stirs and loosens the substratum without bringing it to the surface. The half of the field pre- pared in such a thorough manner will probably yield three times the amount of fruit that could be gathered from the whole area under ordinary treatment, and if the right varieties are grown, and a good market is within reach, the money received will be in a higher ratio. The principle of generous and thorough preparation may be carried still further in the garden, and its soil, already rich and mellow, may be covered to the depth of several inches with well- rotted compost or any form of barn-yard manure that is not too coarse and full of heat, and this may be incorporated with the earth by trenching to the depth of two feet Of this be certain : the strawberry roots will go as deeply as the soil is prepared and enriched for them, and the results in abundant and enormous fruit will be commensurate. English gardeners advise trenching even to the depth of three feet, where the ground permits it. Few soils can be found so deep and rich by nature that they cannot be improved by art ; and the question for each to decide is, how far the returns will compensate for extra preparation. Very often land for strawberries 54 Success with Small Fruits. receives but little more preparation than for wheat, and such methods must pay or they would not be continued. Many who follow these methods declare that they are the most profitable in the long run. I doubt it. If our market is one in which strawberries are sold simply as such, without much regard to flavor or size, there is not the same inducement to produce fine fruit. But even when quantity is the chief object, deeply prepared and enriched land retains that essential moisture of which we have spoken, and enables the plant not only to form, but also to develop and mature, a great deal of fruit. In the majority of markets, however, each year, size and beauty count for more, and these qualities can be .secured, even from a favorable soil, only after thorough preparation and enriching. I find that every writer of experience on this subject, both American and European, insists vigorously on the value of such careful pulverization and deepening of the soil. Having thus considered the most favorable land in the best condition possible, under ordinary cultivation, I shall now treat of that less suitable, until we finally reach a soil too sterile and hopelessly bad to repay cultiva- tion. I will speak first of this same deep, moist loam, in its unsubdued condition ; that is, in stiff sod, trees or brush-wood. Of course, the latter must be removed, and, as a rule, the crops on new land — which has been undisturbed by the plow for a number of years, and, perhaps, never robbed of its original fertility — will amply repay for the extra labor of •clearing. Especially will this be the case if the brush and rubbish are burned evenly over the surface. The finest of wild strawberries are found where trees have been felled and the brush burned ; and the •successful fruit grower is the one who makes the best use of such hints from nature. The field would look better and the cultivation be easier if all the stumps could be removed before planting, but this might involve too great preliminary expense, and I always counsel against debt except in the direst necessity. A little brush burned on each stump will effectually check new growth, and, in two or three years, these unsightly objects will be so rotten that they can be pried out, anol easily turned into ashes, one of the best of fertilizers. In the meantime, the native strength of the land will cause a growth which will compensate for the partial lack of deep and thorough cultivation which the stumps and roots prevent. Those who have traveled West and South have seen fine crops of corn growing among the half-burned stumps, and strawberries will do as well. Preparing and Enriching the Soil. 55 But where trees or brush have grown very thickly, the roots and stumps must be eradicated. The thick growth on the sandy land of Florida is grubbed out at the cost of about $30 per acre, and I know of a gentleman who pays at the rate of $25 per acre in the vicinity of Norfolk, Va. I doubt whether it can be done for less elsewhere. In some regions they employ a stump extractor, a rude but strong machine, worked by blocks and pulleys, with oxen as motor power. From the Farmer's Advocate of London, Ont, I learn that an expert with one of these machines, aided by five men and two yoke of oxen, was in the habit of clearing fifty acres annually. I have cleaned hedge-rows and stony spots on my place in the follow- ing thorough manner : A man commences with pick and shovel on one side of the land and turns it steadily and completely over by hand to the depth of fourteen to eighteen inches, throwing on the surface behind him all the roots, stumps and stones, and stopping occasionally to blast when the rocks are too large to be pried out. This, of course, is expensive, and cannot be largely indulged in ; but, when accomplished, the work is done for all time, and I have obtained at once by this method some splendid soil, in which the plow sinks to the beam. A drought must be severe, indeed, that can injure such land. There is a great difference in men in the performance of this work. I have one who, within a reasonable time, would trench a farm. Indeed, in his power to obey the primal command to " subdue the earth," my man, Abraham, is a hero ; although, I imagine, he scarcely knows what the word means, and would as soon think of himself as a hippopotamus. His fortunes would often seem as dark as himself to those who " take thought for the morrow," and that is saying much, for Abraham is " col- ored " as far as man can be. I doubt whether his foresight often reaches further than bed-time, and to that hour he comes with an honest right to rest He is a family man, and has six or seven children, under eight years of age, whom he shelters in a wretched little house, that appears tired of standing up. But to and from this abode Abraham passes daily, with a face as serene as a May morning. In that weary old hovel I am satisfied that he and his swarm- ing little brood have found what no architect can build — a home. Thither he carries his diurnal dollar, when he can get it, and on it they all manage to live and grow fat. He loses time occasionally, it is true, through illness, but no such trifling misfortune can induce him, seemingly, to take a long, anxious look into the future. Only once — it was last winter — have I seen him dismayed by the frowning fates. The doctor thought his wife 5<5 Success with Small Fruits. would die, and they had nothing to eat in the house. When Abraham appeared before me at that time, his " countenance was fallen," as the quaint, strong language of Scripture expresses it. He made no com- plaints, however, and indulged in no Byronic allusions to destiny. Indeed, he said very little, but merely drooped and cowered, as if the wolf at the door and the shadow of death within it were rather more than he could face at one and the same time. It soon became evident, however, that his wife would " pull through," as he said, and then the wolf did n't trouble him a mite. He installed himself as cook, nurse, and house man-of-all- work, finding also abundant leisure to smoke his pipe with infinite content. One morning he was seen baking buckwheat cakes for the children ; each one in turn received an allowance on a tin plate, and squatted here and there on the floor to devour it ; and, from the master of ceremonies down, there was not an indication that all was not just as it should be. A few days later, I met him coming back to his work with his pipe in the corner The Champion Grubber. of his mouth, and the old confident twinkle in his eye as he said, "Mornin', Bossie." Now, Abraham carries his peculiar characteristics into grubbing. If I should set him at a hundred-acre field full of stumps and stones, and Preparing and Enriching the Soil. 57 tell him to clear it to the depth of two feet, he would begin without any apparent misgiving, and with no more thought for the magnitude of his task than he has for the tangled and stubborn mysteries of life in gen- eral, or the dubious question of " what shall be on the morrow " in his own experience. He would see only the little strip that he proposed to clear up that day, and would go to work in a way all his own. Although not talkative to other people, he is very social with himself, and, in the early days of our acquaintance, I was constantly misled into the belief that somebody was with him, and that he was a man of words rather than work. As soon, however, as I reached a point from which I could see him, there he would be alone, bending to his task with the steady persistence that makes his labor so effective ; but, at the same time, until he saw me, he would continue discussing with equal vigor whatever subject might be uppermost in his mind. I suppose he scarcely ever takes out a stone or root without apostrophizing, adjuring and berating it in tones and vernacular so queer that one might imagine he hoped to remove the refractory object by magic rather than by muscle. When the sun is setting, however, and Abraham has complacently advised himself — " better quit, for de night 's done gone, and de ole woman is arter me, afeard I Ve kivered myself up a-grubbin','' — one thing is always evident — a great many stones and roots are " unkivered," and Abraham has earned anew his right to the title of champion grubber. But, as most men handle the pick and shovel, the fruit grower must be chary in his attempts to subdue the earth with these old-time imple- ments. It is too much like making war with the ancient Roman short sword in an age of rifled guns. I agree with that practical horticulturist, Peter Henderson, that there are no implements equal to the plow and subsoiler, and, in our broad and half-occupied country, we should be rather shy of land where these cannot be used. The cultivator whose deep moist loam is covered by sod only, instead of rocks, brush, and trees, may feel like congratulating himself on the easy task before him ; and, indeed, where the sod is light, strawberries, and especially the larger small fruits, are often planted on it at once with fair success. I do not recommend the practice ; for, unless the subsequent culture is very thorough and frequent, the grass roots will continue to grow and may become so intertwined with those of the strawberry that they cannot be separated. Corn is probably the best hoed crop to precede the strawberry. Potatoes too closely resemble this fruit in their demand for potash, and exhaust the soil of one of the most needed elements. A dressing of wood ashes, however, will make good the loss. 8 58 Success with Small Fruits. Buckwheat is one of the most effective means of subduing and cleaning- land, and two crops can be plowed under in a single summer. Last spring I had some very stiff marsh sod turned over and sown with buckwheat, which, in our hurry, was not plowed under until considerable of the seed ripened and fell. A second crop from this came up at once, and was plowed under when coming into blossom, as the first should have been. The straw, in its succulent state, decayed in a few days, and by autumn my rough marsh sod was light, rich and mellow as a garden, ready for anything. If it should happen that the land designed for strawberries was in clover, it would make an admirable fertilizer if turned under while still green, and I think its use for this purpose would pay better than cutting it for hay, even though there is no better. Indeed, were I about to put any sod land, that was not very stiff and unsubdued, into small fruits, I would wait till whatever herbage covered the ground was just coming into flower, and then turn it under. The earlier growth that precedes the formation of seed does not tax the soil much, but draws its substance largely from the atmosphere, and when returned to the earth while full of juices, is valuable. In our latitude, this can usually be done by the middle of June, and if on this sod buckwheat is sown at once, it will hasten the decay, loosen and lighten the soil in its growth, and in a few weeks be ready itself to increase the fertility of the field by being plowed under. In regions where farm- yard manure and other fertilizers are scarce and high, this plowing under of green crops is one of the most effective ways both of enriching and pre- paring the land ; and if the reader has no severer labors to perform than this, he may well congratulate himself. But let him not be premature in his self-felicitation, for he may find in his sod ground, especially if it be old meadow land, an obstacle worse than stumps and stones — the Lachnosterna fusca. This portentous name may well inspire dread, for the thing itself can realize one's worst fears. The deep, moist loam which we are considering is the favorite haunt of this hateful little monster, and he who does not find it lying in wait when turning up land that has been long in sod, may deem himself lucky. The reader need not draw a sigh of relief when I tell him that I mean merely the " white grub," the larva of the May-beetle or June- bug, that so disturbs our slumbers in early summer by its sonorous hum and aimless bumping against the wall. This white grub, which the farm- ers often call the " potato worm," is, in this region, the strawberry's most formidable foe, and, by devouring the roots, will often destroy acres of plants. If the plow turns up these ugly customers in large numbers, the Preparing and Enriching the Soil. 59 only recourse is to cultivate the land with some other crop until they turn into beetles and fly away. This enemy will receive fuller attention in a later chapter. It is said that this pest rarely lays its eggs in plowed land, preferring sod ground, where its larvae will be protected from the birds, and will find plenty of grass roots on which to feed. Nature sees to it that white grubs are taken care of, but our Monarch strawberries need our best skill and help in their unequal fight ; and if "Lachnos " and tribe should turn out in force, Alexander himself would be vanquished. Stff CHAPTER VIII. PREPARATION OF SOIL BY DRAINAGE. T7XCESSIVE moisture will often prevent the immediate cultivation of -Lrf our ideal strawberry land. Its absence is fatal, its excess equally so. Let me suggest some of the evil effects. Every one is aware that climate — that is, the average temperature of the atmosphere throughout the year — has a most important influence on vegetation. But a great many, I imagine, do not realize that there is an underground climate also, and that it is scarcely less important that this should be adapted to the roots than that the air should be tempered to the foliage. Water-logged land is cold. The sun can bake, but not warm it to any extent. Careful English experiments have proved that well-drained land is from 10° to 20° warmer than wet soils ; and Mr. Parkes has shown, in his " Essay on the Philosophy of Drainage," that in " draining the ' Red Moss ' the thermometer in the drained land rose in June to 66° at seven inches below the surface, while in the neighboring water-logged land it would never rise above 47°, an enormous gain." In his prize essay on drainage, Dr. Madden confirms the above, and explains further, as follows : " An excess of water injures the soil by diminishing its temperature in summer and increasing it in winter — a transformation of nature most hurtful to perennials, because the vigor of a plant in spring depends greatly on the lowness of temperature to which it has been subjected during the winter (within certain limits, of course), as. the difference of temperature between winter and spring is the exciting 60 Preparation of Soil by Drainage. 61 cause of the ascent of the sap." In other words, too much water in the soil may cause no marked difference between the underground climate of winter and spring. Dr. Madden shows, moreover, that excess of water keeps out the air essential not only in promoting chemical changes in the soil itself and required by the plants, but also the air which is directly needed by the roots. Sir H. Davy, and others, have proved that oxygen and carbonic acid are absorbed by the roots as well as by the foliage, and these gases can be brought to them by the air only. Again, drainage alters the currents which occur in wet soil. In undrained land, evaporation is constantly bringing up to the roots the sour, exhausted water of the subsoil, which is an injury rather than a benefit. On the other hand, the rain just fallen passes freely through a drained soil, carrying directly to the roots fresh air and stimulating gases. Wet land also produces conditions which disable the foliage of plants from absorbing carbonic acid, thus greatly decreasing its atmospheric supply of food. Other reasons might be given, but the reader who is not satisfied had better set out an acre of strawberries on water-logged land. His empty pocket will out-argue all the books. The construction of drains may be essential, for three causes. 1st. Land that is dry enough naturally, may lie so as to collect and hold sur- face water, which, accumulating with every rain and snow storm, at last renders the soil sour and unproductive. 2d. Comparatively level land, and even steep hill-sides, may be so full of springs as to render drains at short intervals necessary. 3d. Streams, flowing perhaps from distant sources, may find their natural channel across our grounds. If these channels are obstructed or inadequate, we find our land falling into the ways of an old soaker. It should here be stated, however, that if we could cause streams to overflow our land in a shallow, sluggish current, so that a sediment would be left on the surface after- a speedy subsidence, the result would be in miniature like the overflow of the Nile in Egypt, most beneficial, that is, if means for thorough subsequent drainage was provided. If there is an abundance of stone on one's place suitable for the con- struction of drains, they can often be used to advantage, as I shall show ; but for all ordinary purposes of drainage, round tile with collars are now recommended by the best authorities. It is said that they are cheaper than stone, even where the latter is right at hand ; and the claim is reasonable, since, instead of the wide ditch required by stone, a narrow cut will suffice for tile ; thus, a great saving is at once effected in the cost 62 Success with Small Fruits. of digging. Tile also can be laid rapidly and is not liable to become obstructed if properly protected at points of discharge by gratings, so that vermin cannot enter. They should not be laid near willow, elm and other trees of like character, or else the fibrous roots will penetrate and fill the channel. If one has a large problem of drainage to solve, he should carefully read a work like Geo. E. Waring's " Draining for Profit and for Health " ; and if the slope or fall of some fields is very slight, say scarcely one foot in a hundred, the services of an engineer should be employed, and accurate grades obtained. By a well-planned system, the cost of draining a place can be greatly reduced, and the water made very useful. On my place at Cornwall I found three acres of wet land, each in turn illustrating one of the causes which make drainage necessary. I used stone, because, in some instances, no other material would have answered, in others partly because I was a novice in the science of drainage, and partly because I had the stones on my place, and did not know what else to do with them. I certainly could not cart them on my neighbors' ground without having a surplus of hot as well as cold water, so I con- cluded to bury them in the old-fashioned box-drains. Indeed, I found rather peculiar and difficult problems of drainage, and the history of their solution may contain useful hints to the reader. Map Showing Experiments in the Drainage of a Strawberry Farm. ). Srr.ossN.Y. In front of my house there is a low, level plot of land containing about three acres. Upon this the surface water ran from all sides, and there was no outlet. The soil was, in consequence, sour, and in certain spots only a wiry marsh grass would grow. And yet it required but a glance to see that a drain, which could carry off this surface water immediately, would render it the best land on the place. I tried, in vain, the experiment of Preparation of Soil by Drainage. digging a deep, wide ditch across the entire tract, in hopes of finding a porous subsoil. Then I excavated great, deep holes, but came to a blue clay that held water like rubber. The porous subsoil, in which I knew the region abounded, and which makes Cornwall exceptionally free from all miasmatic troubles, eluded our spades like hidden treasures. I eventually found that I must ob- f^-_ tain permission of a neighbor to carry a drain across another farm to the mountain stream that empties The "Seth Boyden " Strawberry..— The Scene of Operations. into the Hudson at Cornwall Landing. The covered drain through the adjoining place was deep and expensive, but the ditch across my land 64 Success with Small Fruits. (marked A on the map) is a small one, walled with stone on either side. It answers my purpose, however, giving me as good strawberry land as I could wish. On both sides of this open ditch, and at right angles with it, I had the ground plowed up into beds 130 feet long by 21 wide. The shallow depressions between these beds slope gently toward the ditch, and thus, after every storm, the surface water, which formerly often covered the entire area, is at once carried away. I think my simple, shallow, open drain is better than tile in this instance. As may be seen from the map, my farm is peculiar in outline, and resembles an extended city lot, being 2,550 feet long, and only 410 wide. The house, as shown by the engraving, stands on quite an ele- vation, in the rear of which the land descends into another swale or basin. The drainage of this presented a still more difficult problem. Not only did the surface water run into it, but in moist seasons the ground was full of springs. The serious feature of the case was that there seemed to be no available outlet in any direction. Unlike the mellow, sand)' loam in front of the house, the swale in the rear was of the stiffest kind of clay — just the soil to retain and be spoiled by water. During the first year of our residence here, this region was sometimes a pond, some- times a quagmire, while again, under the summer sun, it baked into earthenware. It was a doubtful question whether this stubborn acre could be subdued, and yet its heavy clay gave me just the diversity of soil I needed. Throughout the high gravelly knoll on which the house stands, the natural drainage is perfect, and a sagacious neighbor suggested that if I cut a ditch across the clayey swale into the gravel of the knoll, the water would find a natural outlet and disappear. The ditch was dug eight feet wide and five feet deep, for I decided to utilize the surface of the drain as a road-bed. Passing out of the clay and hard-pan, we came into the gravel, and it seemed porous enough to carry off a fair-sized stream. I concluded that my difficult problem had found a cheap and easy solution, and, to make assurance doubly sure, I directed the men to dig a deep pit and fill it with stones. When they had gone about nine feet below the surface, I happened to be standing on the brink of the excavation watching the work. A laborer struck his pick into the gravel, when a stream gushed out which in its sudden abundance suggested that which flowed in the wilderness at the stroke of Moses's rod. The problem was now complicated anew. So far from finding an outlet, I had dug a well which the men could scarcely bail •out fast enough to permit of its being stoned up. My neighbors remarked that my wide ditch reminded them of the Erie Preparation of Soil by Drainage. 65 canal, and my wife was in terror lest the children should be drowned in it. Now something had to be done, and I called in the services of Mr. Cald- well, city surveyor of Newburgh, and to his map I refer the reader for a clearer understanding of my tasks. Between the upper and lower swales, the ridge on which the house stands slopes to its greatest depression along its western boundary, and I was shown that if I would cut deep enough, the open drain in the lower swale could receive and carry off the water from the upper basin. This appeared to be the only resource, but with my limited means it was like a ship-canal across the Isthmus of Panama. The old device of emptying my drains into a hole that practically had no bottom, suggested itself to me. It would be so much easier and cheaper that I resolved once more to try it, though with hopes naturally dampened by my last moist experience. I directed that the hole (marked B on the map) should be oblong, and in the direct line of the ditch, so that if it failed of its purpose it could become a part of the drain. Down we went into as perfect sand and gravel as I ever saw, and the deeper we dug the dryer it became. This time, in wounding old " Mother Earth," we did not cut a vein, and there seemed a fair pros- pect of our creating a new one, for into this receptacle I decided to turn my largest drain and all the water that the stubborn acre persisted in keeping. I therefore had a "box-drain" constructed along the^western bound- ary of the place (marked C) until it reached the lowest spot in the upper swale. This drain was simply and rapidly constructed, in the following manner : a ditch was first dug sufficiently deep and wide, and with a fall that carried off the water rapidly. In the bottom of this ditch the men built two roughly faced walls, one foot high and eight inches apart. Com- paratively long, flat stones, that would reach from wall to wall, were easily found, and thus we had a covered water-course, eight by twelve inches, forming the common box- drain that will usually last a life- time. The openings over the channel were carefully " chinked " in with small stones and all covered with inverted sods, shavings, leaves or anything that prevented the loose soil from sifting or washing down into the water-course. At the upper end of the box-drain, just described, a second and smaller receptacle was dug (marked D), and from this was constructed another box-drain (E), six inches square, across the low ground to the end of the canal in which we had found the well (F). This would not only drain a portion of the land but would also empty the big ditch (G), and prevent the water of the well from rising above a certain point. This kind of stone-work can be done rapidly ; two men in two short winter days built thirteen rods with a water-course six inches in the clear. 9 66 Success with Small Fruits. To the upper and further end of the canal (G), I constructed another and cheaper style of drain. In the bottom of this ditch (H), two stones were placed on their ends or edges and leaned together so as to form a kind of arch, and then other stones were thrown over and around them until they reached a point eighteen inches from the surface. Over these stones, as over the box-drains also, was placed a covering of any coarse litter to keep the earth from washing down ; and then the construction of one or two short side-drains, the refilling the ditches and leveling the ground completed my task. It will be remembered that this entire system of drainage ended in the excavation (B) already described. The question was now whether such a theory of drainage would " hold water." If it would, the hole I had dug must not, and I waited to see. It promised well. Quite a steady stream poured into it and disappeared. By and by there came a heavy March storm. When I went out in the morning, everything was afloat. The big canal and the well at its lower end were full to over- flowing. The stubborn acre was a quagmire, and alas ! the excavation which I had hoped would save so much trouble and expense was also full. I plodded back under my umbrella with a brow as lowering as the sky. There seemed nothing for it but to cut a " Dutch gap " that would make a like chasm in my bank account. By noon it cleared off, and I went down to take a melancholy survey of the huge amount of work that now seemed necessary, when, to my great joy, the oblong cut, in which so many hopes had seemingly been swamped, was entirely empty. From the box-drain a large stream poured into it and went down — to China, for all that I knew. I went in haste to the big canal and found it empty, and the well lowered to the mouth of the drain. The stubborn acre was now under my thumb, and I have kept it there ever since. During the past summer, I had upon its wettest and stiffest portion two beds of Jucunda strawberries that yielded at the rate of one hundred and ninety bushels to the acre. The Jucunda strawberry is especially adapted to heavy land requiring drainage, and I think an enterprising man in the vicinity of New- York might so unite them as to make a fortune. The hole was filled with stones and now forms a part of my garden, and the canal answers for a road-bed as at first intended. In the fortuitous well I have placed a force-pump, around which are grown and watered my potted plants. The theory of carrying drains into gravel does hold water, and sometimes holes can be dug at a slight expense, that practically have no bottom. I have no doubt that in this instance tile would have been better and cheaper than the small stone drains that I have described. Preparation of Soil by Drainage. 67 Men Ditching. — Jucunda Strawberry. 68 Success with Small Fruits. In the rear of my place there was a third drainage problem very different from either of the other two. My farm runs back to the rise of the mountain, whose edge it skirts for some distance. It thus receives at times much surface water. At the foot of the mountain-slope, there are about three acres of low alluvial soil that was formerly covered with a coarse, useless herbage of the swamp. Between the meadow and the slope of the mountain, "the town" built a " boulevard" (marked I I on the map), practically "cribbing" an acre or two of land. Ahab, who needed Naboth's vineyard for public purposes, is the spiritual father of all "town boards." At the extreme end of the farm, and just beyond the alluvial ground, was the channel of a brook (marked J). Its stony bed, through which trickled a rill, had a very innocent aspect on the October day when we looked the farm over and decided upon its purchase. The rill ran a little way on my grounds, then crept under the fence and skirted my western boundary for several hundred yards. On reaching a rise of land, it re-entered my place and ran obliquely across it. It thus inclosed three sides of the low, bushy meadow I have named. Its lower channel across the place had been stoned up with the evident purpose of keeping it within limits ; but the three or four feet of space between the walls had become obstructed by roots, bushes, vines and debris in general. With the exception of the stony bed where it first entered the farm, most of its course was obscured by overhanging bushes and the sere, rank herbage of autumn. In a vague way, I felt that eventually something would have to be done to direct this little child of the mountain into proper ways, and to subdue the spirit of the wilderness that it diffused on every side. I had its lower channel across the place (K K) cleared out, thinking that this might answer for the present ; and the gurgle of the little streamlet along the bottom of the ditch seemed a low laugh at the idea of its ever filling the three square feet of space above it. Deceitful little brook! Its innocent babble contained no suggestion of its hoarse roar on a March day, the fol- lowing spring, as it tore its way along, scooping the stones and gravel from its upper bed and scattering them far and wide over the alluvial meadow. Instead of a tiny rill, I found that I would have to cope at times with a mountain torrent. At first, the task was too heavy, and the fitful- tempered brook, and the swamp-like region it encompassed, were left for years to their old wild instincts. At last the increasing demands of my business made it necessary to have more arable land, and I saw that, if I could keep it from being overwhelmed with water and gravel, the alluvial meadow was just the place for strawberries. Preparation of Soil by Drainage. 69 I commenced at the lowest point where it finally leaves my grounds, and dug a canal (K K), twelve feet wide by four or five deep, across my place, stoning up its walls on either side. An immense amount of earth and gravel was thrown on the lower side so as to form a high, strong embankment in addition to the channel. Then, where it entered the farm above the meadow, I had a wide, deep ditch excavated, throwing all the debris between it and the land I wished to shield. Throughout the low meadow, two covered box-drains (L and M) were constructed so that the plow could pass over them. On the side of the meadow next to the boule- vard and mountain, I had an open drain (N N) dug and filled with stones even with the ground. It was designed to catch and carry off the surface water, merely, from the long extent of mountain-slope that it skirted. The system of ditches to protect and drain the partial swamp, and also to manage the deceitful brook, was now finished, and I waited for the results. During much of the summer, there was not a drop of water in the wide canal, save where a living spring trickled into it. The ordinary fall rains could scarcely more than cover the broad, pebbly bottom, and the unsophisticated laughed and said that I reminded them of the general who trained a forty-pound gun on a belligerent mouse. I remembered what I had seen, and bided my time. But I did not have to wait till March. One November day, it began to rain, and it kept on. All the following night there was a steady rush and roar of falling water. It was no ordinary pattering, but a gusty outpouring from the "windows of heaven." The two swales in the front and rear of the house became great muddy ponds, tawny as the " yellow Tiber," and through intervals of the storm came the sullen roar of the little brook that had been purring like a kitten all summer. Toward night, Nature grew breathless and exhausted ; there were sobbing gusts of wind and sudden gushes of rain that grew less and less frequent. It was evident she would become quiet in the night and quite serene after her long, tempestuous •mood. As the sun was setting, I ventured out with much misgiving. The deepening roar as I went down the lane increased my fears, but I was fairly appalled by the wild torrent that cut off all approach to the bridge. The water had not only filled the wide canal, but also, at a point a little above the bridge, had broken over and washed away the high embankment. I skirted along the tide until I reached the part of the bank that still remained intact, and there beneath my feet rushed a flood that would have instantly swept away horse and rider. Indeed, quite a large tree had been torn up by its roots, and carried down until it caught in the bridge, which would also have gone had not the embankment above it given way. 7*-^- used, or the ground has been generously prepared with green crops, plowed under, the yield is often large and profitable. But as often it is "— _ quite the reverse, es- pecially if the season ''< '*• proves dry and hot. Mattel Bed System. Usually, plants SOd- ded together cannot mature fine fruit, especially after they have exhausted half their vitality in running. In clayey loams, the surface in the matted rows becomes as hard as a brick. Light showers make little impression on it, and the fruit often dries upon the vines. Remembering that the straw- berry's chief need is moisture, it will be seen that it can scarcely be maintained in a hard-matted sod. Under this system, the fruit is small at best, and it all matures together. If adopted in the garden, the family has but a few days of berries instead of a few weeks. The marketman may find his whole crop ripening at a time of over- supply, and his small berries may scarcely pay for picking. To many of this class the cheapness of the system will so commend itself that they will continue to practice it until some enterprising neighbor teaches them better, by his larger cash returns. In the garden, however, it is the most expensive method. When the plants are sodded together, the hoe and fork cannot be used. The whole space must be weeded by hand, and there are some pests whose roots interlace horizontally above and below the ground, and which cannot be eradicated from the matted rows. Too often, therefore, even in the neatest garden, the strawberry bed is the place where vegetable evil triumphs. There are modifications of this system that are seen to better advan- tage on paper than in the field or garden. The one most often described in print — I have never seen it working successfully — may be termed the " renewal system." Instead of plowing the matted beds under, after the first or second crop, the paths between the beds are enriched and spaded Ctiltivation. \ \ \ or plowed. The old plants are allowed to fill these former paths with new plants ; which process being completed, the old matted beds are turned under, and the new plants that have taken the places of the paths bear the fruit of the coming year. But, suppose the old beds have within them sorrel, white clover, wire-grass, and a dozen other perennial enemies, what practical man does not know that these pests will fill the vacant spaces faster than can the strawberry plants ? There is no chance for cultivation by hoe or horse-power. Only frequent and laborious weedings by hand can prevent the evil, and this but partially, for, as has been said, the roots of many weeds are out of reach unless there is room for the fork, hoe, or cultivator to go beneath them. In direct contrast with the above is the ''hill system." This, in brief, may be suggested by saying that the strawberry plants are set out three feet — more or less — apart, and treated like hills of corn, with the excep- tion that the ground is kept level, or should be. They are often so arranged that the cultivator can pass between them each way, thus obvi- ating nearly all necessity for hand work. When carried out to such an extent, I consider this plan more objectionable than the former, especially at the North. In the first place, when the plants are so distant from each other, much of the ground is left unoccupied and unproductive. In the second place, the fruit grower is at the mercy of the strawberry's worst enemy, the Lachnosterna, or white grub. Few fields in our region are wholly free from them, and a few of the voracious pests would leave the ground bare, for they devour the roots all summer long. In the third place, where so much of the ground is unoccupied, the labor of mulching, so that the soil can be kept moist and the fruit clean, is very great. In small garden-plots, when the plants can be set only two feet apart each way, the results of this system are often most admirable. The entire spaces between them can be kept mellow and loose, and therefore moist. There is room to dig out and eradicate the roots of the worst weeds. By frequently raking the ground over, the annual weeds do not get a chance to start. In the rich soil, the plants make great, bushy crowns that nearly touch each other, and as they begin to blossom, the whole space between them can be mulched with straw, grass, etc. The runners can easily be cut away when the plants are thus isolated. Where there are not many white grubs in the soil, the hill system is well adapted to meet garden culture, and the result, in a prolonged season of large, beautiful fruit, will be most satisfactory. Moreover, the berries, being exposed on all sides to the sun, will be of the best flavor. In the South, the hill system is the only one that can be adopted to 112 Success with Small Fruits. advantage. There the plants are set in the summer and autumn, and the crop is taken from them the following spring. Therefore, each plant must be kept from running, and be stimulated to do its best within a given space of time. In the South, however, the plants are set but one foot apart in the rows, and thus little space is lost. I am satisfied that the method best adapted to our eastern and western conditions is what is termed the " narrow row system," believing that it will give the greatest amount of fine fruit with the least degree of trouble and expense. The plants are set one foot from each other in line, and not allowed to make runners. In good soil, they will touch each other after one year's growth, and make a continuous bushy row. The spaces between Narrow Row and Hill Systems. the rows may be two and a half to three feet. Through these spaces the cultivator can be run as often as you please, and the ground can be thus kept clean, mellow and moist. The soil can be worked — not deeply, of course — within an inch or two of the plants, and thus but little space is left for hand-weeding. I have found this latter task best accomplished by a simple tool made of a fork-tine, with a section of the top left attached, thus : T- Old broken forks can thus be utilized. This tool can be thrust deeply between the plants without disturbing many roots, and the most stubborn weed can be pried out. Under this system, the ground is occupied to the fullest extent that is profitable. The berries are exposed to light and air on either side, and mulch can be Cultivation. applied with the least degree of trouble. The feeding-ground for the roots can be kept mellow by horse-power ; if irrigation is adopted, the spaces between the rows form the natural channels for the water. Chief of all, it is the most successful way of fighting the white grub. These enemies are not found scattered evenly through the soil, but abound in patches. Here they can be dug out if not too numerous, and the plants allowed to run and fill up the gaps. To all intents and purposes, the narrow row system is hill culture with the evils of the latter subtracted. Even where it is not carried out accurately, and many plants take root in the rows, most of them will become large, strong and productive, under the hasty culture which destroys the greater number of the side-runners. Where this system is fairly tried, the improvement in the quality, size, and, therefore, measuring bulk of the crop, is astonishing. This is especially true of some varie- ties, like the Duchess, which, even in a matted bed, tends to stool out into great bushy plants. The cut shows how enormously productive it becomes under this system. Doctor Thurber, editor of the Amer- ican Agriculturist, unhesi- tatingly pronounced it the most productive and best early variety in my speci- men-bed, containing fifty A Duchess Row and Berry. different kinds. If given a chance to develop its stooling-out qualities, it is able to compete even with the Crescent and Wilson in productiveness. At the same time, its fruit becomes large, and as regular in shape as if IS H4 Success with Small Fruits. turned with a lathe. Many who have never tried this system would be surprised to find what a change for the better it makes in the old popular kinds, like the Charles Downing, Kentucky and Wilson. The Golden Defiance, also, which is so vigorous in the matted beds that weeds stand but little chance before it, almost doubles in size and productiveness if restricted to a narrow row. The following remarks will have reference to this system, as I consider it the best. We will start with plants that have just been set out. If fruit is our aim, we should remember that the first and strongest impulse of each plant will be to propagate itself; but to the degree that it does so, it lessens its own vitality and power to produce berries the following season. Therefore, every runner that a plant makes means so much less and so much smaller fruit from that plant. Remove the runners as they appear, and the life of the plant goes to make vigorous foliage and a correspondingly large fruit bud. The sap is stored up as a miller collects and keeps for future use the water of a stream. Moreover, a plant thus curbed abounds in vitality and does not throw down its burden of prematurely ripe fruit after a few hot days. It works evenly and continuously, as strength only can, and leisurely perfects the last berry on the vines. You will often find blossoms and ripe fruit on the same plant — something rarely seen where the plants are crowded and the soil dry. I have had rows of Triomphe de Gand in bearing for seven weeks. With these facts before us, the culture of strawberries is simple enough. A few days after planting, as soon as it is evident that they will live, stir the surface just about them not more than half an inch deep. Insist on this ; for most workmen will half hoe them out of the ground. A fine-tooth rake is one of the best tools for stirring the surface merely. After the plants become well rooted, keep the ground mellow and clean as you would between any other hoed crop, using horse-power as far as possi- ble, since it is the cheapest and most effective. If the plants have been set out in spring, take off the fruit buds as soon as they appear. Unless the plants are very strong, and are set out very early, fruiting the same year means feebleness and often death. If berries are wanted within a year, the plants must be set in summer or autumn. Then they can be permitted to bear all they will the following season. A child with a pair of shears or a knife, not too dull, can easily keep a large garden-plot free from runners, unless there are long periods of neglect. Half an hour's work once a week, in the cool of the evening, will be sufficient. A boy paid at the rate of twenty-five cents a day can keep acres clipped if he tries. Cultivation. 115 If the ground were poor, or one were desirous of large fruit, it would be well to give a liberal autumn top-dressing of fine compost or any well- rotted fertilizer not containing crude lime. Bone dust and wood ashes are excellent. Scatter this along the rows, and hoe it in the last time they are cultivated in the fall. With the exception of guano and other quick-acting stimulants, I believe in fall top-dressing. The melting snows and March rains carry the fertilizing properties down to the roots, which begin growing and feed- ing very early in spring. If compost or barn-yard manure is used, it aids in protecting the plants during the winter, warms and mellows the soil, and starts them into a prompt, vigorous growth, thus enabling them to store up sufficient vitality in the cool growing season to produce large fruit in abundance. If top-dressings are applied in the spring, and a dry period follows, they scarcely reach the roots in time to aid in forming the fruit buds. The crop of the following year, however, will be increased. Of course, it is far better to top-dress the rows in spring than not at all. I only wish to suggest that usually the best results are obtained by doing this work in the fall ; and this would be true especially of heavy soils. When the ground begins to freeze, protect the plants for the winter by covering the rows lightly with straw, leaves, or — better than all — with light, strawy horse-manure, that has been piled up to heat and turned over once or twice, so that in its violent fermentation all grass seeds have been killed. Do not cover so heavily as to smother the plants, nor so lightly that the wind and rains will dissipate the mulch. Your aim is not to keep the plants from freezing, but from freezing and thawing with every alternation of our variable winters and springs. On ordinarily dry land, two or three inches of light material is sufficient. Moreover, the thaw- ing out of the fruit buds or crown, under the direct rays of the sun, injures them, I think. Most of the damage is done in February and March. The good gardener watches his plants, adds to the covering where it has been washed away or is insufficient, and drains off" puddles, which are soon fatal to all the plants beneath them. Wet ground, moreover, heaves ten times as badly as that which is dry. If one neglects to do these things, he may find half of the plants thrown out of the ground, after a day or two of alternate freezing and thawing. Good drainage alone, with three or four inches of covering of light material, can prevent this, although some varieties, like the Golden Defiance, seem to resist the heaving action of frost remarkably. Never cover with hot, heavy manure, nor too deeply with leaves, as the rains beat n6 Success with Small Fruits. these down too flatly. Let the winter mulch not only cover the row, but reach a foot on either side. Just before very cold weather begins, — from the middle of November to December 1st, in our latitude, — we may, if we choose, cover our beds so deeply with leaves, or litter of some kind, as to keep out the frost com- pletely. We thus may be able to dig plants on mild winter days and early spring, in case we have orders from the far South. This heavy covering should be lightened sufficiently early in the spring to prevent smothering. Plants well protected have a fine green appearance early in spring, and, even if no better, will give much better satisfaction than those whose leaves are sere and black from frost. As the weather begins to grow warm in March, push aside the cover- ing a little from the crown of the plants, so as to let in air. If early fruit is desired, the mulch can be raked aside and the ground worked between the rows, as soon as danger of severe frosts is over. If late fruit is wanted, let in air to the crown of the plants, but leave the mulch on the ground, which is thus shielded from the sun, warm showers, and the south wind, for two or three weeks. I have now reached a point at which I differ from most horticultural writers. As a rule, it is advised that there be no spring cultivation of bearing plants. It has been said that merely pushing the winter mulch aside sufficiently to let the new growth come through is all that is needed. I admit that the results are often satisfactory under this method, especially if there has been deep, thorough culture in the fall, and if the mulch between and around the plants is very abundant. At the same time, I have so often seen unsatisfactory results that I take a decided stand in favor of spring cultivation, if done properly and sufficiently early. I think my reasons will commend themselves to practical men. Even where the soil has been left mellow by fall cultivation, the beating rains and the weight of melting snows pack the earth. All loamy land settles and tends to grow hard after the frost leaves it. While the mulch checks this tendency, it cannot wholly prevent it. As a matter of fact, the spaces between the rows are seldom thoroughly loosened late in the fall. The mulch too often is scattered over a comparatively hard surface, which by the following June has become so solid as to suffer disastrously from drought in the blossoming and bearing season. I have seen well- mulched fields with their plants faltering and wilting, unable to mature the crop because the ground had become so hard that an ordinary shower could make but little impression. Moreover, even if kept moist by the mulch, land long shielded from sun and air tends to become sour, heavy, and Cultivation. 117 devoid of that life which gives vitality and vigor to the plant. The winter mulch need not be laboriously raked from the garden-bed or field, and then carted back again. Begin on one side of a plantation and rake toward the other, until three or four rows and the spaces between them are bare ; then fork the spaces or run the cultivator — often the subsoil plow — deeply through them, and then immediately, before the moist, newly made surface dries, rake the winter mulch back into its place as a summer mulch. Then take another strip and treat it in like manner, until the generous impulse of spring air and sunshine has been given to the soil of the entire plantation. The cut, giving a section of my specimen-bed, shows one row still under its winter covering, one cultivated and ready for the summer Three Rows, illustrating early Spring Work. mulch, and the third row with this applied, and the plants ready for fruiting. A liberal coat of fine compost was forked in also at the same time, and the resulting crop was enormous. This spring cultivation should be done early — as soon as possible after the ground is dry enough to work. The roots of a plant or tree should never be seriously disturbed in the blos- soming or bearing period, and yet I would rather stir the surface, even when my beds were in full bloom, than leave it hard, baked and dry ; for, heed this truth well — unless a plant, from the time it blossoms until the fruit matures, has an abundance of moisture, it will fail in almost the exact proportion that moisture fails. A liberal summer mulch under and around the plants not only keeps the fruit clean, but renders a watering 1 1 8 Success with Small Fruits. much more lasting, by shielding the soil from the sun. Never sprinkle the plants a little in dry weather. If you water at all, soak the ground and keep it moist all the time till the crop matures. Insufficient watering will injure and perhaps destroy the best of beds ; but this subject and that of irrigation will be treated in a later chapter. When prize berries are sought, enormous fruit can be obtained by the use of liquid manure, but it should be applied with skill and judgment, or else its very strength may dwarf the plants. In this case, also, all the little green berries, save the three or four lowest ones, may be picked from the fruit truss, and the force of the plant will be expended in maturing a few mammoth specimens. Never seek to stimulate with plaster or lime, directly. Other plants' meat is the strawberry's poison in respect to the immediate action of these two agents. Horse manure composted with muck, vegetable mold, wood ashes, bone meal, and, best of all, the product of the cow-stable, if thoroughly decayed and incorporated with the soil, will probably give the largest strawberries that can be grown, if steady moisture, but not wetness, is maintained. Many advise the mowing off of the old foliage after the fruit has been gathered. I doubt the wisdom of this practice. The crowns of the plants and the surface of the bed are laid open to the midsummer sun. The foliage is needed to sustain dr develop the roots. In the case of a few petted and valuable plants, it might be well to take off some of the old dying leaves, but it seems reasonable to think that the wholesale destruction of healthful foliage must be a severe blow to the vitality of the plants. Still, the beds should not be left to weeds and drought. Neglect would be ungracious, indeed, just after receiving such delicious gifts. I would advise that the coarsest of the mulch be raked off and stored for winter covering, and then the remainder forked very lightly or cultivated into the soil, as a fertilizer, immediately after a soaking rain, but not when the ground is dry. Do not disturb the roots of a plant during a dry period. Many advise a liberal manuring after the fruit is gathered. This is the English method, and is all right in their humid climate, but dangerous in our land of hot suns and long droughts. Dark-colored fertilizers absorb and intensify the heat. A sprinkling of bone dust can be used to advantage as a summer stimulant, and stronger manures, contain- ing a larger per cent, of nitrogen, can be applied just before the late fall rains. A plant just after bearing needs rest. After fruiting, the foliage of some of our best kinds turns red and seemingly burns and shrivels away. This is not necessarily a disease, but merely the decay of old leaves which have fulfilled their mission. Cultivation. 119 From the crown a new and vigorous growth will eventually take their place. When one is engaged in the nursery business, the young plants form a crop far more valuable than the fruit. Therefore, every effort is made to increase the number of runners rather than to destroy them. Stimulating manures, which promote a growth of vines rather than of The Wilson Strawberry. Boy Weeding. fruit, are the most useful. The process of rooting is often greatly hastened by layering; that is, by pressing the incipient plant forming on the runner into the soil, and by laying on it a pebble or lump of earth to keep it in its place. When a bed is closely covered with young plants that have not taken root, a top-dressing of fine compost I2O Success with Small Fruits. will greatly hasten their development. Moisture is even more essential to the nurseryman than to the fruit grower, and he needs it especially during the hot months of July, August and September, for it is then that the new crop of plants is growing. Therefore, his need of damp but well-drained ground ; and if the means of irrigation are within his reach, he may accomplish wonders, and can take two or three crops of plants from the same area in one season. While the growing of strawberry plants may be very profitable, it must be expensive, since large areas must be laboriously weeded by hand several times in the season. Instead of keeping the spaces between the rows clear, for the use of horse-power, it is our aim to have them covered as soon as possible with runners and young plants. The Golden Defiance, Crescent Seedling and a few others will keep pace with most weeds, and even master them ; but nearly all varieties require much help in the unequal fight, or our beds become melancholy examples of the survival of the unfittest CHAPTER XVI. A SOUTHERN STRAWBERRY FARM, AND METHODS OF CULTURE IN THE SOUTH. HAVING treated of the planting of strawberries, their cultivation, and kindred topics, in that great northern belt, of which a line drawn through New York city may be regarded as the center, I shall now suggest characteristics in the culture of this fruit in southern latitudes. We need not refer to the oldest inhabitant, since the middle-aged remember when even the large cities of the North were supplied from the fields in the suburbs, and the strawberry season in town was identical with that of the surrounding country. But a marvelous change has taken place, and berries from southern climes appear in our markets soon after midwinter. This early supply is becoming one of the chief industries of the South Atlantic coast, and every year increases its magnitude. At one time, southern New Jersey furnished the first berries, but Maryland, Delaware, and Virginia soon began to compete. Norfolk early took the lead in this trade, and even before the war was building up a fine business. That event cut off our Southern supply, and for a few years June and strawberries again came together. But after the welcome peace, many Southern fields grew red once more, but not with blood, and thronged, but chiefly by women and children. Soil, climate, and superb water communications speedily restored to Norfolk the vantage which she will probably maintain ; but fleet steamers are giving more southern ports a chance. Charleston, South Carolina, is second only in importance. In 16 122 Success with Small Fruits. the spring of '79, every week four steamers were loaded for New York, and strawberries formed no insignificant proportion of the freight. Indeed, the supply from Charleston was so large that the price in April scarcely repaid the cost of some shipments. The proprietor of a commis- sion house, largely engaged in the southern fruit trade, told me he thought that about one-third as many strawberries came from Charleston as from Norfolk. From careful inquiries made on the ground, I am led to believe — if it has not already attained this position — that Norfolk is rapidly becoming the largest strawberry center in the world, though Charleston is unquestionably destined to become its chief rival in the South. The latter city, however, has not been able to monopolize the far southern trade, and never have I seen a finer field of strawberries than was shown me in the suburbs of Savannah. It consisted of a square of four acres, set with Neunan's Prolific, the celebrated Charleston berry. And now Florida, with its unrivaled oranges, is beginning to furnish tons of strawberries, that begin ripening in our midwinter ; and, with its quick, sandy soil and sunny skies, threatens to render the growing of this fruit under glass unprofitable. I saw last winter, at Mandarin, quite an extensive strawberry farm, under the care of Messrs. Bowen Brothers, and was shown their skillful appliances for shipping the fruit. At Jacksonville, also, Captain William James is succeeding finely in the culture of some of our northern varieties, the Seth Boyden taking the lead. I think I can better present the characteristics of strawberry culture in the South by aiming to give a graphic picture of the scenes and life on a single farm, than is possible by general statements of what I have witnessed here and there. I have therefore selected for description a plantation at Norfolk, since this city is the center of the largest trade, and nearly midway in the Atlantic strawberry belt. I am also led to make this choice because here is to be found, I believe, the largest strawberry farm in the world, and its varied labors illustrate most of the southern aspects of the question. The reader may imagine himself joining our little party on a lovely afternoon about the middle of May. We took one of the fine, stanch steamers of the Old Dominion line at three P. M., and soon were enjoying, with a pleasure that never palls, the sail from the city to the sea. Our artistic leader, whose eye and taste were to illumine and cast a glamour over my otherwise matter-of-fact text, was all aglow with the varied beauties of the scene, and he faced the prospect beyond the " Hook " with no more misgivings than if it were a " painted ocean." But there are occasions when the most heroic courage is of no avail. Methods of Culture in the South. 123 Only in the peace and beauty that crowned the closing hours of the day, as we steamed past Fortress Monroe and up the Elizabeth river, did the prosaic fade out of the hours just past, and now before us was the " sunny South " and strawberries and cream. In the night there was a steady downfall of rain, but sunshine came with the morning, and we found that the spring we had left at the North was summer here, and saw that the season was moving forward with quickened and elastic tread. Before the day grew warm, we started from our hotel at Norfolk for the strawberry plantation, rattling and bouncing past comfortable and substantial homes, over a pavement that surpassed even the ups and downs of fortune. Here and there, sur- rounded by a high brick wall, would be seen a fine old mansion, embowered in a wealth of shrubbery and foliage that gave, even in the midst of the city, a suburban seclusion. The honeysuckle and roses are at home in Norfolk, and their exquisite perfume floated to us across the high garden fences. Thank heaven ! some of the best things in the world cannot be walled in. St. Paul's Church and quaint old burying- ground, shadowed by trees, festooned with vines and gemmed with flowers, seemed so beautiful, as we passed, that we thought its influence on the secular material life of the people must be almost as good through the busy week as on the Sabbath. The houses soon grew scattering, and the wide, level, open country stretched away before us, its monotony broken here and there by groves of pine. The shell road ceased and our wheels now passed through many deep puddles, which in Virginia seem sacred, since they are pre- served year after year in exactly the same places. A more varied class of vehicles than we met from time to time would scarcely be seen on any other road in the country. There were stylish city carriages and buggies, grocer and express wagons, great lumbering market trucks laden with barrels of early cabbages, spring wagons, drawn by mules, piled up with crates from many a strawberry field in the interior, and so, on the descending scale, till we reach the two-wheeled, primitive carts drawn by cows — all converging toward some northern steamer, whose capacious maw was ready to receive the produce of the country. We had not proceeded very far before we saw in the distance a pretty cottage, sheltered by a group of tall, primeval pines, and on the right of it a large barn-like building, with a dwelling, office, smithy, sheds, etc., grouped about it. A previous visit enabled me to point out the cottage as the home of the proprietor, and to explain that the seeming barn was a straw- berry crate manufactory. As was the case on large plantations in the 124 Success with Small Fruits. olden time, almost everything required in the business is made on the place, and nearly every mechanical trade has a representative in Mr. Young's employ. As we drove up under the pines, the proprietor of the farm wel- comed us with a cordial hospitality, which he may have acquired in The Home Field and Mr. Young's Cottage. part from his residence in the South. On the porch stood a slender lady, whose girlish grace and delicate beauty at once captivated the artists of our party. There was the farm we had come to see, stretching away before us in hundreds of green, level acres. As we drove to a distant field in which the pickers were then engaged, we could see the ripening berries with one side blushing toward the sun. Passing a screen of pines, we came out into a field containing thirteen acres of Wilson strawberries, and then more fully began to realize the magnitude of the business. Scattered over the wide area, in what seemed inextricable confusion to our uniniti- ated eyes, were hundreds of men, women, and children of all ages and shades of color, and from the field at large came a softened din of voices, above the monotony of which arose here and there snatches of song, laughter mellowed by distance, and occasionally the loud, sharp orders of the overseers, who stalked hither and thither, wherever their " little brief authority " was most in requisition. We soon noted that the confusion was more apparent than real, and that each picker was given a row over which he — or, more often, she — bent with busy fingers until it was finished. At central points crates were piled up, and men known as " buyers " received the round quart baskets from the trays of the pickers, while wide platform carts, drawn by mules, were bringing empty crates and carrying away those that had been filled. Methods of Culture in the South. 125 Along the road that skirted the field, and against a pretty background of half- grown pines, motley forms and groups were moving to and fro, some seeking the " buyers " with full trays, others returning to their stations in the field with a new supply of empty baskets. Some of the pickers were drifting away to other fields, a few seeking work late in the day ; more, bargaining with the itinerant venders of pies, made to last all summer if not sold, gingerbread, " pones," and other nondescript edibles, at which an ostrich would hesitate in well-grounded fear of indigestion, but for which sable and semi-sable pickers exchange their berry tickets and pennies as eagerly as we buy Vienna rolls. Two or three ba- rouches and buggies that had brought visitors were mingled with the mule-carts ; and grouped together for a moment might be seen elegantly attired ladies from New York, slender mulatto girls, clad in a single tattered gown which scantily covered their bare ankles and feet, and stout, shiny negro women, their waists tied with a string The First Glimpse. to prevent their flowing drapery from impeding their work. Flitting to and fro were numberless colored chil- dren, bare-headed, bare-legged, and often with not a little of their sleek bodies gleaming through the innumerable rents of their garments, their eyes glittering like black beads, and their white teeth showing on the slightest provocation to mirth. Indeed, the majority of the young men and women were chattering and laughing much of the time, and only those well in the shadow of age worked on in a stolid, plodding manner. Mingled indiscriminately with the colored people were not a few white 126 Success with Small Fruits. women and children, and occasionally a white man. As a rule, these were better dressed, the white girls wearing sun-bonnets of portentous size, whose cavernous depths would make a search for beauty on the part of our artist a rather close and embarrassing scrutiny. The colored women as often wore a man's hat as any other, and occasionally enlivened the field with a red bandana. Over all the stooping, moving, oddly appareled forms, a June-like sun was shining with summer warmth. "Nondescript Edibles." Beyond the field a branch of Tanner's Creek shimmered in the light, tall pines sighed in the breeze on the right, and from the copse-wood at their feet quails were calling, their mellow whistle blending with the notes of a wild Methodist air. In the distance rose the spires of Norfolk, complet- ing a picture whose interest and charm I have but faintly suggested. Several of the overseers are negroes, and we were hardly on the Methods of Culture in the South. 127 ground before one of these men, in the performance of his duty, shouted in a stentorian voice : " Heah, you ! Git up, dar, you long man, off'n yer knees. What yo' mashin' down a half-acre o' berries fer ? " Mr. Sheppard was quick to see a good subject, and almost in a flash he had the man posed and motionless in his attitude of authority, and under his rapid strokes Jackson won fame and eminence, going to his work a little later the hero of the field. The overseer's task is a difficult one, for the pickers least given to prayer are oftenest on their knees, crushing -.- Git up, dar, you long man, off'n yer knees." strawberries, and, whether they are " long " or short, much fruit is destroyed. North or South, the effort to keep those we employ off the berries must be constant, especially as a long, hot day is waning. Indeed, one can scarcely blame them for " lopping down." for it would be inquis- itorial torture to most of us to stoop upon our feet through a summer day. Picking strawberries, as a steady business, is wofully prosaic. While the sun had been shining so brightly, there had been an occa- sional heavy jar and rumble of thunder, and now the western sky was black. Gradually the pickers had disappeared from the Wilson field, and we at last followed them, warned by an occasional drop of rain to seek the vicinity of the house. Having reached the grassy slope, beneath the pines in the rear of the dwelling, we turned to note the pretty scene. A branch of Tanner's Creek came up almost to our feet, and on either side of it stretched away long rows of strawberries as far as the eye could reach. Toward these the throng of pickers now drifted, " seeking fresh fields and pastures new." The motley crowd was streaming down on either side of the creek, while across a little causeway came a counter current, the majority of them having trays full of berries. The buyers, like the traders 128 Success with Small Fruits. with the nomad Indians, open traffic anywhere, and at the shortest notice. A mule-cart was stopped, a few empty crates taken off and placed under the pines at our feet, and soon the grass was covered with full quart baskets, for which the pickers received tickets and then passed on, or, as People who "Take no Thought." was often the case, threw themselves down in the shade. The itinerant venders came flocking in like so many buzzards. There was at once chaffering and chaffing, eating and drinking. All were merry. Looking on the groups before us, one would imagine that the sky was serene. And yet, frowning upon this scene of careless security, this improvident disre- gard of a swiftly coming emergency, was one of the blackest of clouds. Every moment the thunder was jarring and rolling nearer, and yet this jolly people, who " take no thought," heeded not the warning. Even the buyers and packers seemed infected with a like spirit, and were leisurely packing in crates the baskets of berries scattered on the grass, when sud- denly Mr. Young, with his fleet, black horse, came flying down upon us. Standing up in his buggy he gave a dozen rapid orders, like an officer on the field in a critical moment. The women, who had been lounging with their hands on their hips, shuffle off with their trays ; half-burned pipes are hastily emptied ; gingerbread, and like delicacies, are stuffed into capacious mouths, since hands must be employed at once. Packers, mules, everybody, everything, are put upon the double-quick to prepare for the shower. It is too late, however, for down come the huge drops as Methods of Culture in the South. 129 they can fall only in the South. The landscape grows obscure, the forms of the pickers in the distance become dim and misty, and when at last it lightens up a little, they have disappeared from the fields. There they go, streaming and dripping toward the barns and sheds, looking as bedraggled as a flock of black Spanish fowls. Such of the mule-drivers as have been caught, now that they are in for it, drive leisurely by with the heavy crates that they should have gathered up more promptly. The cloud did not prove a passing one, and the rain fell so long and copiously that further picking for the day was abandoned. Some jogged off to the city, at a pace that nothing1 but a fiery storm could have quickened. A hundred or two remained under the sheds, singing and laughing. Men and women, and many bright young negro girls, too, lit their pipes and waited till they could gather at the " paying booth," near the entrance of the farm, after the rain was over. This booth was a small shop, extempo- rized of rough boards by an enterprising grocer of the city. One side was open, like the counter of a restaurant, and within, upon the grass, as yet Paying off Hands. untrodden, were barrels and boxes containing the edible enormities which seem indigenous to the semi-grocery and eating-house. In most respects the place resembled the sutler's stand of our army days. There was a small window on one end of the booth, and at this sat the grocer, meta- 17 130 Success with Small Fruits. morphosed into a paymaster, with a huge bag of coin, which he rapidly exchanged for the strawberry tickets. Our last glimpse of the pickers, who had streamed out of the city in the gray dawn, left them in a long line, close as herrings in a box, pressing toward the window, from which came faintly the chink of silver. As night at last closed about us, we realized the difference between a strawberry farm and a strawberry bed, or " patch," as country people say. Here was a large and well-developed business, which proved the presence of no small degree of brain power and energy; and our thoughts naturally turned to the proprietor and the methods by which he achieved success. J. R. Young, Jr., is a veteran in strawberry culture, although but twenty-nine years of age. Mr. Young, Sr., was a Presbyterian clergyman who always had a leaning toward man's primal calling. When his son was a little boy, he was preaching at Plattsburgh, New York, and to his labors in the spiritual vineyard joined the care of a garden that was the pride of the town. Mr. Young, Jr., admits that he hated weeding and working among strawberries as much as any other boy, until he was given a share in the crop, and permitted to send a few crates to Montreal. He had seen but nine years when he shipped his first berries to market, and every summer since, from several widely separated localities and with many and varied experiences, he has sent to northern cities increas- ing quantities of his favorite fruit. When but fifteen years of age he had the entire charge, during the long season, of three hundred " hands," and the large majority of them were Irish women and children. After considerable experience in strawberry farming in northern and southern New York and in New Jersey, his father induced him to settle at Norfolk, Virginia, and hither he came about ten years ago. Now he has under his control a farm of 440 acres, 150 of which are to-day covered with bearing strawberry plants. In addition, he has set out this spring over two million more plants, which will occupy another hundred acres, so that in 1880 he will have 250 acres that must be picked over almost daily. Mr. Young prefers spring planting in operations upon a large scale. Such a choice is very natural in this latitude, for they can begin setting the first of February and continue until the middle of April. Therefore, nine-tenths of the plants grown in this region are set out in spring. But at Charleston and farther south, they reverse this practice, and, with few exceptions, plant in the summer and fall, beginning as early as July on some places, and continuing well into December. I must also state that the finest new plantation that I saw on Mr. Young's place was a field of Seth Boydens set out in September. Methods of Culture in the South. 131 This fact proves that he could follow the system of autumn planting successfully, and I am inclined to think that he will regard this method with constantly increasing favor. As an instance proving the adaptation to this latitude of the fall system of planting, I may state that 96,000 plants were sent to a gentleman at Richmond, in October, 1877, an<^ when I visited his place, the following spring, there was scarcely a break in the long rows, and nearly fruit enough, I think, to pay for the plants. From his Seth Boydens, set out last September, Mr. Young will certainly pick enough berries to pay expenses thus far ; and at the same time, the plants are already four times the size of any set out this spring. As the country about Norfolk is level, with spots where the water would stand in very wet weather, Mr. Young has it thrown up into slightly raised beds two and a half feet wide. This is done by plows, after the ground has been thoroughly prepared and leveled by a heavy, fine-toothed harrow. These ridges are but four or five inches high, and are smoothed off by an implement made for the purpose. Upon these beds, quite near the edges, the plants are set in rows twenty inches apart, while the depressed space between the beds is twenty-seven inches wide. This space is also designed for the paths. The rows and the proper distances for the plants are designated by a " marker," an implement consisting of several wheels fastened to a frame and drawn by hand. On the rim of these wheels are two knobs shaped like an acorn. Each wheel marks a continuous line on the soft earth, and with each revolution the knobs make two slight but distinct depressions twelve inches apart ; or, if the variety to be planted is a vigorous grower, he uses another set of wheels that indent the ground every fifteen inches. A plant is dropped at each indentation, and a gang of colored women follow with trowels, and, by two or three quick, dexter- ous movements, imbed the roots firmly in the soil. Some become so quick and skillful as to be able to set out six or seven thousand a day, while four or five thousand is the average. With his trained band of twenty women, Mr. Young calls the setting of a hundred thousand plants a good day's work. In April commences the long campaign against the weeds, which advance like successive armies. No sooner is one growth slain than a different and perhaps more pestiferous class rises in its place — the worst of the Philistines being nut-grass, quack-grass and — direst foe of all — wire-grass. This labor is reduced to its minimum by mule cultivation, and Mr. Young has on his -farm a style of cultivator that is peculiarly adapted to the work. As this is his own invention, I will not describe it, but merely state that it enables him to work very close to the rows, and 132 Success with Small Fruits. to stir the soil deeply without moving it or covering the plants. These cultivators are followed by women, with light, sharp hoes, who cut away the few weeds left between the plants. They handle these tools so deftly that scarcely any weeding is left to be done by hand ; for, by a rapid encircling stroke, they cut within a half-inch of the plant. For several years past, I have urged upon Mr. Young the advantage of the narrow row system, and his own experience has led him to adopt it. He is now able to keep his immense farm free of weeds chiefly by mule labor, whereas, in his old system of matted row culture it was impossible to keep down the grass, or prevent the ground from becoming hard and dry. He now restricts his plants to hills or "stools," from twelve to fifteen inches apart. The runners are cut from time to time with shoe-knives, the left hand gathering them up by a single rapid movement, and the right hand severing them by a stroke. One woman will, by this method, clip the runners from several acres during the growing season. To keep his farm in order, Mr. Young must employ seventy- five hands through the summer. The average wages for women is fifty cents, and for men seventy-five to ninety cents. In the item of cheap labor the South has the advantage of the North. With the advent of autumn, the onslaught of weeds gradually ceases, and there is some respite in the labors of a Virginia strawberry farm. At Charleston and farther south, this respite is brief, for the winters there are so mild that certain kinds of weeds will grow all the time, and early in February they must begin to cultivate the ground and mulch the plants for bearing. Bordering on Mr. Young's farm, and farther up the creek, there are hundreds of acres of salt meadows. From these he has cut, in the autumn and early winter, two hundred tons of hay, and with his lighter floats it down to his wharf. In December, acre after acre is covered until all the plants are quite hidden from view. In the spring, this winter mulch is left upon the ground as the summer mulch, the new growth in most instances pushing its way through it readily. When it is too thick to permit this, it is pushed aside from the crowns of the plants. Thus far he has given the bearing fields no spring culture, adopt- ing the common theory that the ground around the plants must not be disturbed at this season. I advocate the opposite view, and believe in early spring culture, as I have already explained; and I think his experience this year will lead him to give my method a trial in 1880. The latter part of April and early May was very dry at Norfolk, and Methods of Culture in the South. 133 the ground between the bearing plants became parched, hard, and in many instances full of weeds that had been developing through the long, mild spring of this region. Now I am satisfied that if he, and all others in this region who adopt the narrow row system, would loosen the ground deeply with a subsoil plow early in the season, before the plants had made any growth, and then stir and pulverize all the surface between the plants in the rows, they would increase the size and quan- tity of the berries at least one-third, and in many instances double the crop. It would require a very severe drought, indeed, to injure plants thus treated, and it is well known, also, that a porous, mellow soil will best endure too frequent rains. I have sometimes thought that light and air are as indispensable to the roots of plants as to the foliage. The winter mulch need not prevent this spring culture. Let the men begin on one side of a field, and rake inward until half a dozen rows are uncovered. Down through these the subsoil plow and the cultivator can pass. Then the hay can be raked back again as the summer mulch, and a new space cleared, until the whole field is culti- vated and the mulch left as it was before. Now, however, it is not a surface like hard-pan that is covered, but a mellow soil in which the roots can luxuriate. Mr. Young uses fertilizers, especially those containing ammonia, only to a limited extent, believing that while they undoubtedly increase the size of the fruit, they also render it soft and unfit for long carriage, and promote an undue growth of vine. This theory is true, to a certain extent, but I think the compensating benefits of fertilizers of almost any kind far outweigh the disadvantages. At his distance from the market, firmness in the berry is essential, but I think he will find this quality is dependent more upon the weather and the variety than upon the fertilizer. Of course, over-stimulation by hot manures will always produce an unwholesome, perishable growth, but a good coat of well-rotted compost scattered down the rows, just before they receive their fall or spring culture, would be exceedingly beneficial in nine cases out of ten. I most heartily agree with him, however, that all fertilizers containing potash are pecul- iarly adapted to the strawberry. Having considered his methods of planting and culture, we now return again to the culminating period in which the hopes and labors of the year are rewarded or disappointed. When we awoke the morning following our arrival, we found the landscape obscured by a dense fog. Through this, in dim, uncertain outline, throngs of pickers were streaming out from the city to Mr. Young's place and the strawberry farms beyond. 134 Success with Small Fruits. The broad fields seemed all the more vast from the obscurity, and the stooping forms of the fruit-gatherers took on odd and fantastic shapes in the silvery mist. But while we drank our coffee the sun sipped these morning vapors, and when we stepped out under the pines, the day was hourly growing brighter and warmer. The balmy, fragrant air, the meadow larks singing in the distance, the cheery voices of the pickers in an adjacent field, would tempt gloom itself to forget its care and stroll away through the sunlight. The pickers were beginning to take possession of a field containing thirty acres of Triomphe de Gands, and we followed them, and there lit on one of the oddest characters on the plantation — "Sam Jubilee," the " row-man," black as night, short, stout, and profane. It is Sam's busi- ness to give each picker a row of berries, and he carries a brass-headed cane as the baton of authority. As we came up, he was whirling a glazed hat of portentous size in one hand, and gesticulating so wildly with his cane that one might think he was in convulsions of rage, but we soon learned that this was " his way." " Heah, you, dah !" he vociferated, to the slouching, leisurely pickers that were drifting after him, " what 's de matter wid yer j'ints ? Step along lively, or, by " and then came a volley of the most outlandish oaths ever uttered by a human tongue. " Don't swear so, Sam," said Mr. Young. " Can't help it, sah. Dey makes me swar. Feels as if I could bust inter ten thousand emptins, dey 's so agerwatin. Heah, my sister, take dat row. You, gemlin" (to a white man), " take dat. Heah, chile, step in dar an' pick right smart, or I '11 warm yer ! " Sam " brothers and sisters " the motley crowd he domineers like a colored preacher, but I fear he is not " in good and regular standing " in any church in Norfolk. " He can give out rows more rapidly and systematically than any man I ever had," said Mr. Young, and we soon observed that wherever Jubilee led, with his stentorian voice and emphatic gestures, there was life and movement. Thus we learned that although there might be 1,500 people in the fields, there was no hap-hazard picking. Each one would be assigned a row, which could not be left until all the ripe berries on it were gathered. Passing to and fro across the fields are the two chief overseers of the farm, Harrison and Peters, both apparently full-blooded negroes, but, in the vernacular of the South, " right smart men." They have been with Methods of Culture in the South. 135 Mr. Young eight or ten years, and were promoted and maintain their position solely on the ground of ability and faithfulness. They go rapidly from one to another, noting whether they are picking the rows clean. They also take from each tray a basket at random, and empty it into another, thus discovering who are gathering green or imperfect berries. If the fruit falls much below the accepted standard, the baskets are confis- cated and no tickets given for them, and if the picker continues careless he is sent out of the field. Mr. Young says that he has never found any white overseers who could equal these men, and through the long year they drive on the work with tireless energy. Indeed, Peters often has much ado to keep his energy under control. An Overseer — " A little brief authority." A powerful engine cannot always be safe, and Peters slipped his bands one day to his cost. A woman would not obey him, and he threatened her with a pistol. Instead of obeying, she started to run. He fired and wounded her twice, and then tried to get off on the lame excuse that he did not know the pistol was loaded. The trouble was that he was over- loaded. But his offense resulted more from these characteristics than from innate ugliness of temper. To make the business of the huge farm go has become his controlling passion, and he chafes at an obstacle like an obstructed torrent. 136 Success with Small Fruits. Harrison, his associate overseer, unites more discretion with his force, and he gave us an example of this fact. As we were strolling about, we found, seated at the end of the strawberry rows, a group consisting of two young women and two children, with a colored man standing near. They had been picking in partnership, we were informed by one of the young women, who was smoking a pipe, and who replied to our questions, scarcely taking the trouble to look up. She was about half white, and her face was singularly expressive of sensuousness and indolent recklessness. "This man is your husband ?" I suggested. "No, he 's only my brudder. My ole man is picking on anoder farm," she drawled out, between the whiffs of her pipe. " I should • think you and your husband would work together," I ventured. "We doesn't. He goes about his business and I goes about mine," she remarked, with languid complacency. Here is a character, I thought, as we passed on, — the very embodi- ment of a certain kind of willfulness. She would not resist or chafe at authority, but, with an easy, good-natured, don't care expression, would do as she pleased " though the heavens fell." A little later there was a heavy rumble of thunder in the west, and we met again the young woman whose marital relations resembled those of many of her fashionable sisters at the North. She was leading her small band from the field. The prospective shower was her excuse for going, but laziness the undoubted cause. Harrison, like a vigilant watch-dog, spied them and blustered up, never for a moment doubting that she would yield to his authority. But he had met his match. She merely looked at him with her slow, quiet, indolent smile, in which there was not the faintest trace of irreso- lution or fear, and he knew that the moment he stepped out of the way, she would pass on. His loud expostulations and threats soon ceased. What could he do with that laughing woman, who no doubt had been a slave, but was now emancipated a trifle too completely ? He might as well try to stop a sluggish tide with his hands. It would ooze away from him inevitably. The instincts of this people are quick. Harrison knew he was defeated, and his only anxiety now was to retreat in a way that would save appearances. " I'se a-gwine home, M's'r Harrison/' she said quietly. " You don't catch us gittin' wet ag'in." " Oh, well, if you is 'fraid ob gittin' wet, s'pose I'll habe to let you off jus' dis once," he began pompously ; and here, fortunately, he saw a man leaving the field in the distance. There was a subject with which he Methods of Culttire in the South. 137 could deal, and a line of retreat open at the same time, and away he went, therefore, vociferating all the more loudly that he might cover his discomfiture. The woman smiled a little more complacently and went on, with her old easy, don't-care swing, as she undoubtedly will, whithersoever her inclinations lead, to the end of her life. To crys- tallize such wayward human atoms into proper forms, and make them useful, is a problem that would puzzle wiser heads than that of the overseer. I think, however, that not only Harrison and Peters, but all who have charge of working people, rely too much on driving, and too little on encouraging and coaxing. An incident which occurred may illustrate this truth. My companion, Mr. Drake, soon mastered one of the labors of a strawberry farm, — the gathering of the fruit, — and out of the pleni- tude of his benevolence essayed to teach a little sable how he could pick to better advantage. " Put your basket down, sonny," he said. " Now you have two hands to work with instead of one — so, don't you see ?" " Dat 's mighty good in you, Mas'r," said a woman near. " Lor bress you ! de people 'ud jess jump over derselves tryin to do the work if dey got sich good words, but de oberseer 's so cross dat we gits 'umptous and don't keer." Still, to the majority, the strawberry season brings the halcyon days of the year. They look forward to it and enjoy it as a prolonged picnic, in which business and pleasure are equally combined. They are essen- tially gregarious, and this industry brings many together during the long bright days. The light work leaves their tongues free, and families and neighbors pick together with a ceaseless chatter, a running fire of rude, broad pleasantry, intermingled occasionally with a windy war of words in a jargon that becomes all the more uncouth from anger, but which rarely ends in blows. We were continually impressed by their courage, buoyancy, animal spirits, or whatever it is that enables them to face their uncertain future so unconcernedly. Multitudes live like the birds, not knowing where their next year's nest will be, or how to-morrow's food will come. It has come, thus far, and this fact seems enough. In many instances, however, their humble fortunes are built on the very best foundations. "What can you do after the berry season is over?" we asked a woman who had but one arm. " I kin do what any other woman kin do," she said, straightening her- self up. " I kin bake, cook, wash, iron, scrub " 18 138 Success with Small Fruits. " That will do," I cried. " You are better off than most of us, for the world will always need and pay for your accomplishments." The story of her life was a simple one. She did not remember when she lost her arm, but only knew that it had been burned off. When scarcely more than an infant, she had been left alone in the little cabin by the slave mother, who probably was toiling in the tobacco field. There was a fire on the hearth — the rest can be imagined only too vividly. She is fighting out the battle of life, however, more successfully with her one hand than are multitudes of men with two. She is stout and cheery, and can " take keer of herself and children," she said. Scattered here and there over the fields might be seen two heads that would keep in rather close juxtaposition up and down the long rows. "Dey 's pairin' off," was the explanation. " You keep de tickets," said a buxom young woman to her mate, as he was about to take her tray, as well as his own, to the buyers. " You are in partnership," I remarked. "Yes, we is," she replied, with a conscious laugh. " You are related, I suppose ? " "Well, not 'zackly — dat is — we 's partners." " How about this partnership business — does it not last sometimes after the strawberry season is over ? " " Oh, Lor', yes ! " Heaps on 'em gits fallen in love ; den dey gits a-marryin', arter de pickin' time is done gone by." " Now I see what your partnership means." "Yah, yah, yah ! You sees a heap more dan I 's told you !" But her partner grinned most approvingly. We were afterward informed that there was no end to the love-making among the strawberry rows. There are from fifty to one hundred and fifty pickers in a squad, and these are in charge of subordinate overseers, who are continually moving around among them, on the watch for delinquencies of all kinds. Some of these minor potentates are white and some black. As a rule, Mr. Young gives the blacks the preference, and on strictly business principles, too. "The colored men have more snap, and can get more work out of their own people," he says. By means of these sub- overseers, large numbers can be transferred from one part of the farm to another without confusion. Fortunes are never made in gathering strawberries, and yet there seems no dearth of pickers. The multitude of men, women and children that streams out into the country every morning is surprisingly large. Five or six thousand bushels a day are often gathered in the vicinity of Norfolk, and the pickers rarely average over a bushel each. " Right Methods of Culture in the South. 139 smart hands," who have the good hap to be given full rows, will occa- sionally pick two bushels ; but about thirty quarts per day is the usual amount, while not a few of the lazy and feeble bring in only eight or ten. As has been already suggested, the pickers are followed by the buyers and packers, and to these men, at central points in the fields, the mule- carts bring empty crates. The pickers carry little trays containing six baskets, each holding a quart. As fast as they fill these, they flock in to the buyers. If a trayful, or six good quarts, are offered, the buyer gives the picker a yellow ticket, worth twelve cents. When less than six baskets are brought, each basket is paid for with a green ticket, worth two cents. These two tickets are eventually exchanged for a white fifty-cent ticket, which is cashed at the paying-booth after the day's work is over. The pickers, therefore, receive two cents for every quart of good, salable berries. If green, muddy, or decayed berries are brought in, they are thrown away or confiscated, and incorrigibly careless pickers are driven off the place. Every morning, the buyers take out as many tickets of these three values as they think they can use, and are charged with the same by the book-keeper. Their voucher for all they pay out is another ticket, on which is printed " Forty-five quarts," or just a crateful. Only Mr. Young and one other person have a right to give out the last-named tickets, and by night each buyer must have enough of them to balance the other tickets with which he was charged in the morning. Thus, thousands of dollars change hands through the medium of four kinds of tickets not over an inch square, and by means of them the financial part of gathering the crop is managed. In previous years, these tickets were received the same as money A Picker. 140 Success with Small Fruits. by any of the shops in the city, and on one occasion were counterfeited. Mr. Young now has his own printing-office, and gets them up in a way not easily imitated, nor does he issue them until just as the fruit begins to ripen. He has, moreover, given authority to one man only to cash these tickets. Thus there is little chance for rascality. He also requires that no tickets shall be cashed until the fields have all been picked over. Were it not for this regulation, the lazy and the " bummers " would earn enough merely to buy a few drinks, then slink Exchanging and Counting Tickets. off. Now they must remain until all are through before they can get a cent. Peters and Harrison see to it that none are lying around in the shade, and thus, through the compulsion of system, many, no doubt, are surprised to find themselves at work for the greater part of the day. And yet neither system nor Peters, with even his sanguinary reputa- tion, is able alone to control the hordes employed. Of course the very dregs of the population are largely represented. Many go out on a Methods of Culture in the South. 141 " lark," not a few to steal, and some with the basest purposes. Walking continually back and forth through the fields, therefore, are two duly authorized constables, and their presence only prevents a great deal of crime. Moreover, according to Virginian law, every landholder has the right to arrest thieves and trespassers. Up to the time of our visit, five persons had been arrested, and the fact that they were all white does not speak very well for our color. The law of the State requires that they shall be punished by so many lashes, according to the gravity of the offense, and by imprisonment. The whipping-post is one of the institutions, and man or woman, white or black, against whom the crime of stealing is proved, is stripped to the waist and lashed upon the bare back. Such ignominious punishment may prevent theft, but it must tend to destroy every vestige of self-respect and pride in criminals, and render them hope lessly reckless. Therefore, it should cease at once. It must be admitted, however, that very little lawlessness was apparent. In no instance have I received a rude word while traveling in the South, while, on the other hand, the courtesy and kindness were almost unstinted. The negroes about Norfolk certainly do not wear an intimidated or " bull-dozed " air. " Git off my row, dar, or I '11 bust yo' head open," shouted a tall, strapping colored girl to a white man, and he got off her row with alacrity. Mr. Young says that the negro laborers are easily managed, and will endure a great deal of severity if you deal " squarely " with them ; but if you wrong them out of even five cents, they will never forget it. What 's more, every citizen of " Blackville " will be informed of the fact, for what one knows they all seem to know very soon. We were not long in learning to regard the strawberry farm as a little world within itself. It would be difficult to make the reader understand its life and " go " at certain hours of the day. Scores are coming and going ; hundreds dot the fields ; carts piled up with crates are moving hither and thither. At the same time, the regular toil of cultivation is maintained. Back and forth between the young plants mules are drawing cultivators, and following these come a score or two women with light, sharp hoes. From the great crate manufactory is heard the whir of machinery and the click of hammers ; at intervals the smithy sends forth its metallic voice, while from one center of toil and interest to another the proprietor whisks in his open buggy at a speed that often seems perilous. After all, Mr. Young's most efficient aid in his business was his father (recently deceased). It gave me pleasure to note the frequency and deference with which the senior's judgment was consulted, and I also- 142 Success with Small Fruits. observed that wherever the old gentleman's umbrella was seen in the field, all went well. At four or five in the afternoon, the whole area would be picked over. The fields would be left to meadow-larks and quails, whose liquid notes well replaced the songs and cries of the pickers. Here and there a mule-cart would come straggling in. By night, all signs of life were concentrated around the barns and paying booth ; but even from these one after another would drift away to the city, till at last scarcely a vestige of the hurry and business of the day would be left. The deep hush and quiet that settled down on the scene was all the more delightful from contrast. To listen to the evening wind among the pines, to watch the sun drop below the spires' of Norfolk, and see the long shadows creep toward us; to let our thoughts flit whither they would, like the birds about us, was all the occupation we craved at this hour. Were we younger and more romantic, we might select this witching time for a visit to an ancient grave in one of the strawberry fields. A mossy, horizontal slab marks the spot, and beneath it reposes the dust of a young English officer. One bright June day — so the legend is told — one hundred and sixteen years ago, this man, in the early summer of his life, was killed in a duel. Lingering here, through the twilight, until the landscape grows as obscure as this rash youth's history, what fancies some might weave. As the cause of the tragedy, one would scarcely fail to see among the shadows the dim form and features of some old-time belle, whose smiles had kindled the fierce passion that was here quenched, more than a century since. Did she marry the rival, of surer aim and cooler head and heart, or did she haunt this place with regretful tears ? Did she become a stout, prosaic woman, and end her days in whist and all the ancient proprieties, or fade into a remorseful wraith that stilt haunts her unfortunate lover's grave? One shivers, and grows superstitious. The light twinkling from the windows of the cottage under the pines becomes very attractive. As we fall asleep after such a visit, we like to think of the meadow-larks singing on the mossy tombstone in the morning. During a rainy day, when driven from the field, we found plenty to interest us in the printing-office, smithy, and especially in the huge crate manufactory. Here were piled up coils of baskets that suggested straw- berries for a million supper-tables. Hour after hour the mule-power engine drove saws, with teeth sharper than those of time, through the pine- boards that soon become crates for the round quart baskets. These crates were painted green, marked with Mr. Young's name, and piled to the lofty, cobwebbed ceiling. Methods of Culture in the South. But Saturday is the culminating period of the week. The huge plantation has been gone over closely and carefully, for the morrow is Sunday, on which day the birds are the only pickers. Around the office, crate man- ufactory and paying booth, were gathered over a thou- sand people — a motley and variegated crowd, that the South only can produce. The odd and often coarse jargon, the infinite variety in appear- ance and character, suggested again that humanity is a very tangled problem. The shrewdness and accuracy, however, with which the most ignorant count their tickets and reckon their dues on their fingers, is a trait characteristic of all, and, having received the few shil- lings, which mean a luxurious Sunday, they trudge off to town, chattering volubly, whether any one listens or not. Making Crates. But many cannot resist the rollicking music back of the paying booth. Three sable musicians form the orchestra, and from a bass viol, fiddle, and fife they extract melody that, with all its short-coming, would make a deacon wish to dance. Any one, white or black, can Exterior of Factory. 144 Success with Small Fruits. purchase the privilege of keeping step to the music for two cents, or one strawbe-rry ticket. Business was superb, and every shade of color and character was represented. In the vernacular of the farm, the mulatto girls are called " strawberry blondes," and one that would have attracted atten- tion anywhere was led out by a droll, full-blooded negro, who would have made the fortune of a minstrel troupe. She was tall and willowy. A profusion of dark hair curled about an oval face, not too dark to prevent a faint color of the strawberry from glowing in her cheeks. She wore neither hat nor shoes, but was as unembarrassed, apparently, in her one close- fitting garment, as could be any ball-room belle dressed in the latest mode. Another blonde, who sported torn slippers and white stockings, was in Rushing the Last Lot. danger of being spoiled by much attention. As a rule, however, bare feet were nothing against a " lady " in the estimation of the young men. At any rate, all who could spare a berry ticket speedily found a partner, and, as we rode away from the farm, the last sounds were those of music and merriment, and our last glimpse was of the throng of dancers on the green. The confused uproar and rush of business around the Old Dominion steamship made a marked contrast. To the ample wharves every species of vehicle had been coming all day, while all kinds of craft, from a skiff to Methods of Culture in the South. large two-masted schooner, waiting their turn to discharge their freight >f berry crates and garden produce, reached half across the Elizabeth iver. The rumble of the trucks was almost like the roar of thunder, as >res of negroes hustled crates, barrels and boxes aboard. Most of the time, they were on a good round trot, and one had to pick his way with ire ; for, apparently, the truck was as thoughtful as the trundler. As the long twilight fades utterly into night, the last crate is aboard, ic dusky forms of the stevedores are seen in an old pontoon-shaped it on their way to Portsmouth, but their outlines, and the melody of icir rude song, are soon lost in the distance. The ship, that has become like a huge section of Washington Market, casts off her lines, and away re steam, diffusing on the night air the fragrance of a thousand acres, lore or less, of strawberries. It was late in the night that followed the next day before we reached few York, but on the great covered wharf, to which was given a noon- lay glare by electric lights, there was no suggestion of the darkness and tin without. Various numbers, prominent on the sides of the building, •indicated the lines of transit and the commission houses to which the immense, indiscriminate cargo was assigned. With a heavy jar and rumble that would not cease till the ship was empty, a throng of white laborers each package to its proper place. Mr. Young's crates soon grew |into what seemed, in the distance, a good-sized mound. The number ibove them stood for Eldridge & Carpenter, West Washington Market. Thither we followed them the next morning, but found that the most )f them had already been scattered throughout the city, and realized that ,the berries we had seen a few hours before on the strawberry farm were then on uptown breakfast- tables. CHAPTER XVII. FORCING STRAWBERRIES UNDER GLASS. TRAINED gardeners need no instruction from me on this topic. There may be those, however, who have never given the subject attention, and who would be glad to learn some of the first principles of success in forcing this fruit for market, while a still larger number, having small conservatories and warm south windows, would be pleased to see a few strawberries blossoming and ripening, as an earnest of the coming June. There are no greater difficulties in the way than in having flowers, for it is merely^ question of doing the right thing at the right time. I do not believe in a system of minute, arbitrary directions, so much as in the clear statement of a few general principles that will suggest what ought to be done. The strawberry plant has the same character indoors as out, and this fact alone, in view of what has been written, should suggest moisture, coolness, light and air. I shall endeavor to present, however, each successive step. First, prepare a compost of thoroughly rotted sods and the cleanings of the cow-stable, in the proportion of three parts sod-mold to one of manure. In the place of sods, decayed leaves, muck, sweetened by a year's exposure to air and frost, or any good, rich loam will answer. With this compost, made fine and clean by passing it through a coarse sieve, fill in June, and not later than July, as many three-inch pots as you desire ; then sink them to their rims along the sides of the rows from which you propose to obtain winter-bearing plants. Varieties best adapted for Forcing Strawberries under Glass. 147 forcing are those of a low, stocky growth, bearing perfect flowers and sweet or high-flavored berries. I should say the Triomphe de Gand was the best, and I observe that it and the La Constante, which it closely resem- bles, are highly recommended abroad. The bush Alpines are said to do finely, and I should think the Black Defiance would answer well. Mr. Henderson speaks highly of the Champion, which, however, must be grown with a perfect- flowered kind, since it is a pistillate. From the parent row, guide the first runners so that they will take root in the pots. Let each runner form but a single, strong plant, which it will do in about two weeks, filling the pot with roots. Then these plants, with their accompanying balls of earth interlaced with roots, are ready to be shifted into pots of from six to eight inches in diameter, which also should be filled with the compost already described. These larger pots should have three or four pieces of broken pottery in the bottom for drainage. One plant to each pot is sufficient, and the soil should be pressed firmly about the roots. The methods of growers now differ somewhat, but all agree in seeking to promote a continuous and healthy growth. It may be necessary to place the pots in a half-shady position for a few days, till the effects of shifting are over, and the roots have taken hold of the new soil. Then they should stand in an open, airy position, close together, where they can receive daily attention. Some recommend that they stand on boards, flagging or bricks, or a layer of coal ashes, since earth-worms are thus kept out ; others sink them in cold frames, where they can be protected somewhat from excessive heat and drenching storms ; while others, still, sink the pots in the open ground, where it is convenient to care for and water them. It is obvious that moisture must be steadily and continuously maintained, and the plants be made to do their best until about the first of October. After this they should be watered very sparingly, — barely kept moist, — since it is now our aim to ripen the foliage and roots and induce a season of rest. At the same time, they should not be permitted to dry out. About the first of Novem- ber, an old hot-bed pit can be filled with dry leaves and the pots plunged in them, close together, up to their rims, and, as the season grows colder, the tops can be covered, so as to prevent the earth in the pots from freezing. The top of the pit can be covered with boards to keep out the wet, but not so tightly as to exclude the air. Our aim is to keep the plants dormant, and yet a little above freezing, and barely moist enough to prevent the slightest shriveling. Since it requires from ten to fourteen weeks to mature the fruit under glass, it would be well to subject some of the plants to heat early in October, so as to have ripe berries at the 148 Success with Small Fruits. holidays. They can thereafter be taken from the storage place every two or three weeks, so as to secure a succession. By this course, also, if a mishap befalls one lot of plants, there still remain several chances for winter fruit. In the forcing process, follow nature. The plants do not start sud- denly in spring, but gradually awaken into life. The weather, also, is comparatively cool when they are blossoming. If these hints are not taken in the green-house, there may be much promise but little fruit. If the heat is turned on too rapidly, when the plants begin to bloom, the calyx and corolla will probably develop properly, but the stamens will be destitute of pollen, while the pistils, the most complicated part of the flower, and that which requires the longest time for perfect formation, become " a mere tuft of abortions, incapable of quickening, and shriveling into pitch-black threads as soon as fully in contact with the air." Let the conditions within-doors accord as far as possible with those under the open sky. The roots require coolness, continuous and evenly maintained moisture. One check from over-dryness may cause serious and lasting injury. The foliage needs air and light, in abun- dance. Therefore, the pots should be on shelves close to the glass ; otherwise the leaf and fruit-stalks will be drawn and spindling. If the pot can be shaded while the plant is in full light, all the better. When first introduced, the temperature should not exceed 45° or 50°. Air must be freely admitted at all times, though much less will suffice, of course, in cold than in warm weather. Watch the foliage, and if it begins to grow long and without substance, give more air and less heat. An average of 55° to 70° by day may be allowed, and from 45° to 50° by night. When the flower buds begin to open, the forcing must be conducted more slowly and evenly, so as to give the delicate organs time to perfect ; but after the fruit is set, the heat can be increased till it occa- sionally reaches 75° at midday. After the fruit begins to color, give less water — barely sufficient to prevent any check in growth, and the fruit will be sweeter and ripen faster. The upper blossoms may be pinched off, so as to throw the whole strength of the plant into the lower berries. Keep off all runners ; syringe the plants if infested with the red spider, and if the aphis appears, fumigate him with tobacco. The plants that have fruited need not be thrown away as useless. If they are turned out of the pots into rich, moist soil, in April, and the runners are kept off all summer, they will make large bushy stools, which will give a fine crop in autumn. Forcing Strawberries under Glass. 149 The amateur, with a small conservatory or south window, by approximating as far as possible to the conditions named, can achieve a fair success. I have had plants do moderately well by merely digging them from the beds late in the fall, with considerable rich earth clinging to their roots, and then potting with more rich soil, and forcing them at once. Of course, fine results cannot be expected from such careless work, but some strawberries can be raised with very little trouble. If one, however, wished to go into the business on a large and scientific scale, I would recommend a strawberry-house, designed by Mr. William Ingram, gardener at Belvoir Castle. A figure of this structure may be seen on page 74, in Mr. Fuller's valuable work, " The Small Fruit Culturist." On the same principles that we have been describing, the ripening of strawberries can be hastened by the use of hot beds, cold frames and ordinary sash. During the Christmas holidays, strawberries sell readily at from $4 to $8 per quart, and handsome fruit brings high prices till March ; but the profit of raising them under glass threatens to diminish in future years, since Florida berries begin to arrive freely even in February. There are those who now seem to be doing well in the business of forcing, if we may judge from the jealousy with which they guard the open secrets of their calling from their neighbors. A rough and ready method of forcing is to dig up clumps of plants during a mild spell in winter or early spring, put them in boxes or pots of rich earth, and take them into the green-house. Considerable fruit is sometimes ripened in this way. An English writer says : " We find forced strawberries mentioned as being served at an installation dinner, April 23d, 1667; but the idea had already occurred to the great Lord Bacon, who writes, 'As we have housed the exotics of hot countries, so we may house our natives to forward them, and thus have violets, strawberries and pease all winter.' " CHAPTER XVIII. ORIGINATING NEW VARIETIES — HYBRIDIZATION. THIS chapter introduces us to great diversities of opinion, and to still greater differences in experience, and I fear that I shall leave the subject as indefinite as I find it. The scientist best versed in botany and the laws of heredity can here find a field that would tax his best skill for a life-time, and yet a child may amuse himself with raising new kinds ; and it would not be impossible that, through some lucky combination of nature, the latter might produce a variety that would surpass the results of the learned man's labor. As in most other activities of life, however, the probabilities are on the side of skill and continuous effort. We have already shown that all the seeds of the F. Virginiana and F. Chilensis may produce a new variety. These seedlings often closely resemble the parent or parents, and sometimes are practically identical with one of them ; more often they present distinct differences. It is wholly impossible to predict the character of seedlings, as they usually are produced. If we could obtain pure specimens of the two great species, and cross them, the element of chance would not enter into the result so largely as must be the case when seed is gathered in our gardens. The pedigrees of but few varieties are known, and in many instances the two great races are so mingled that we can only guess which element predominates, by the behavior and appearance of the plants. The kinds with which we start are hybrids, and, as Mr. A. S. Fuller sagaciously remarks, " Hybridizing, or crossing 150 Originating New Varieties — Hybridization. 151 hybrids, is only mixing together two compounds, the exact propor- tions of neither being known." Therefore, the inevitable element of chance. Disagreeable traits and shiftless ways of strawberry grand- parents and great-grandparents may develop themselves in a seedling produced by the union of two first class varieties. At the same time, it is possible that fine ancestral qualities may also assert themselves. The chance seedling which comes up in a garden where good varieties have been raised may prove a prize. The Forest Rose was found growing in a vineyard. If we propose to raise seedlings, however, we will, of course, select seeds from the best fruit of fine varieties, even in our first and most rudimental efforts. Before making any serious or prolonged attempt to originate new varieties, it would be well to familiarize ourselves with certain principles, and gather experience from the successes and failures of others. We have seen that the F. Virginiana is the native species of the eastern section of our continent, and that its vigor and hardiness best adapt it to our extremes of climate. It were best to start, therefore, with the most vigorous strains and varieties of this hardy species. It is true that fine results can be obtained from crossing varieties of the F. Chilensis with our native species, — the President Wilder proves this, — but few of such products are adapted to the country at large, and they will be almost sure to falter on light soils. We will achieve our best success in developing our native species. By observation, careful reading of the horticultural journals, and by correspondence, the propagator can learn what varieties show vigor and productiveness, throughout a wide range of country, and in great diversities of soil and climate. These sturdy kinds, that seem bent on doing well everywhere, should be the robust forefathers of the strawberries of the future. Starting with these, we are already well on the way toward the excellence we hope to attain. The pith of our difficulty now is to make any further advance. How can we surpass that superb group of berries that prove their excellence year after year ? As Mr. Durand well puts it, new varieties, to be of value, should produce berries that " measure from four to eight inches in circumference, of good form, color and flavor ; very large specimens are not expected to be perfect in form, yet those of medium size should always be. The calyx should never be imbedded in the flesh, which should be sufficiently firm to carry well, and withstand all changes of our variable climate. The texture should be fine, flesh rich, with a moderate amount of acid, — no more than just sufficient to make it palatable with sugar as a table berry. The plant should be hardy, vigorous, large and strong; of great endurance 152 Success with Small Fruits. as to climatic change, and able to stand any amount of manure of the right kind. It should be a prolific bearer, with stalks of sufficient length to keep the fruit out of the dirt, and bear its berries of nearly uniform size to the end. Any serious departure from such necessary qualities would be fatal to any new variety." What is the use of spending time on varieties that do not possess these good qualities, or many of them, so preeminently that they supersede those already in our gardens ? Shall I root out the Charles Downing, Seth Boyden, and Monarch, and replace them with inferior kinds because they are new ? That is what we have been doing too extensively. But if, in very truth, varieties can be originated that do surpass the best we now have, then both common sense and self-interest should lead to their general cultivation. I believe that honest and intelligent effort can secure a continued advance in excellence which will probably be slow, but may be sure. The public, however, will suffer many disappointments, and every year will buy thousands of some extravagantly praised and. high-priced new variety, in hope of obtaining the ideal strawberry ; and they so often get a good thing among the blanks that they seem disposed to continue indefinitely this mild form of speculation. In the final result, merit asserts itself, and there is a survival of the fittest. The process of winnowing the wheat from the chaff is a costly one to many, however. I have paid hundreds of dollars for varieties that I now regard as little better than weeds. From thorough knowledge of the best kinds already in cultiva- tion, the propagator should not impose any second-rate kind on the public. And yet the public, or the law which the public sustains, renders this duty difficult. If a man invents a peculiar nutmeg-grater, his patent pro- tects him ; but if he discovers, or originates, a fruit that enriches the world, any one who can get it, by fair means or foul, may propagate and sell to all. To reap any advantages, the originator must put his seedling, which may have cost him years of effort, into the market before it is fully and widely tested. If he sends it for trial to other localities, there is much danger of its falling into improper hands. The variety may do splendidly in its native garden, and yet not be adapted to general cultiva- tion. This fact, which might have been learned by trial throughout the country before being sent out, if there was protective law, is learned after- ward, to the cost of the majority who buy. In view of the above con- siderations, it is doubtful whether the pecuniary reward will often repay for the time, trouble, and expense which is usually required to produce a variety worthy of general introduction. Other motives than money must Originating New Varieties — Hybridization. 153; actuate. As Mr. Durand once said, when so perplexed by the difficulties and complications of his labor, and so disheartened by the results that he was inclined to throw down the burden, "There is a fascination that binds me still." In other words, he was engaged in one of the divinest forms of alchemy. Having procured the vigorous stock from which we hope to obtain still stronger and more productive varieties, we may go to work several ways. We may plant our choice varieties in close proximity, and let the bees and summer gales do the hybridizing. It will be remembered that the organs of procreation in the perfect strawberry blossom are the pistils on the convex receptacle and the encircling stamens. The anthers of the latter produce a golden powder, so light that it will float on, a summer breeze, and so fine that insects dust themselves with it and carry it long distances. When this dust, which is called pollen, comes in contact with the stigma of a pistil, it imparts the power of development both to the seed and that which sustains it — the receptacle which is eventually trans- formed into the juicy pulp. If the pistils are not fertilized, there will be no strawberries, as well as no seeds. Perfect-flowering varieties, there- fore, are self-fertilizing. There are stamens and pistils in the same flower, and the pollen from the former impregnates the latter. In view of this- fact, the probabilities are all against success in obtaining an improved variety. While the pollen may pass from one perfect-flowering kind to another, and produce a seed which will give a new combination, the chances of self-fertilization, and that, in consequence, the seeds will pro- duce degenerate and somewhat varying counterparts of the parent, are so great that it is a waste of time to plant them. There is little to be hoped, therefore, from the seed of perfect-flowering kinds left to nature's influences. In this country, we have pistillate varieties, or those that are wholly destitute of stamens. Mr. Fuller says that, for some reason, they do not originate abroad. It is obvious that, with these pistillates, we can attain a direct cross with some staminate or perfect-flowering, variety, but if our pistillates grow openly in the garden, near several staminates, the seeds sown may have been fertilized by the poorest of them, or by pollen from wild strawberries, brought by the wind or insects. It is all hap-hazard work, and we can only guess at the parentage of the seedlings. There is no skillful combination of good qualities, such as the stock farmer makes when he mingles good blood. Gathering the seed, therefore, in our gardens, even under the most favorable auspices, is the veriest game of hazard, with nearly all the chances against us ; and yet superb varieties. 20 154 Success with Small Fruits. are occasionally procured in this way. Indeed, as we have seen, they sometimes come up themselves, and assert their merit wholly unaided. By such methods, however, the propagator has not one chance in thousands, as much experience shows. We are, therefore, led to isolate our plants, and to seek intelligently and definitely to unite the good qualities of two distinct varieties. If they have no pistillate plants abroad, they must remove all the stamens from some perfect flower before they are sufficiently developed to shed their pollen, and then fertilize the pistils with the stamens of the other variety whose qualities they wish to enter into the combination. There is no need of our doing this, for it involves much trouble and care at best, and then we are always haunted by the fear that the stamens were not removed in time, or so completely as to prevent self-fertilization. With such pistillate varieties as the Golden Defiance, Champion, Springdale, and Crescent, we have as robust motherhood as we require. In order to present to the reader the most approved systems of hybridization, I will give the methods of two gentlemen who are among the best known in relation to this subject. The late Mr. Seth Boyden won world-wide celebrity by his success, and the berry named after him will perpetuate his memory for many years to come. When grown under the proper conditions, it presents a type of excellence still unsurpassed. Mr. Boyden's neighbor, Mr. Ogden Brown, of Hilton, N. J., writes to me as follows : " My method of raising seedlings is the one practiced by Mr. Boyden. In August I set the plants from which I wish to secure new combinations in a plot of ground the size of my glass frame, and in early spring set the frame over them, so that the plants may blossom before any others. Thus, no mixture from the pollen of outside plants can take place, for none are in bloom save those in the frame. The plants within the frame are two or three pistillate plants, all of one good variety, like the Champion ; and three or four superior, perfect-flowering kinds, any •one of which, I think, will make a good combination with the pistillate variety. The seeds from the pistillate only are used, and when the fruit is ripened, these seeds are slightly dried and placed between two pieces of ice for about two weeks. I then put them in pure sand, wrapped up in a wet rag, and keep them sufficiently near the fire to preserve constant warmth until the germs are ready to burst forth. I then sow the seeds in a bed of finely riddled rich earth, and cover with boards about six inches from the soil. This is to prevent the sun from drying the ground. Plants thus raised will be sufficiently large to set in the fruiting-bed in September. In the fifteen years that I was acquainted with Mr. Boyden, I never knew him to fail in raising fruit from these plants the following summer. I do not know that Mr. Boyden's method has been improved upon." Originating New Varieties — Hybridization. 155 Mr. J. M. Merrick, Jr., recommends this same isolation of the pistil- late plant under glass. It should be distinctly understood that while several perfect-flowering plants may be placed under the sash with a pistillate, the pollen of only one of these can fertilize a pistil. Mixing pollen from different kinds will never produce in a seedling the qualities of three or more varieties. The seedling is the product of two kinds only. Inclosing the plants in a frame insures that all the pistils are fertilized by one~or the other of the perfect-flowered varieties that are so fine as to promise a better combination of excellence than yet exists. The appearance of the seedling will probably show which of the kinds formed the combination, but often there would be uncertainty on this point, I think. Mr. E. W. Durand, who sent out the Black Defiance, Great American, Beauty, Pioneer, and several others, claims that the " true method is to propagate by pairs, each parent possessing certain dis- tinctive features." "My course," he writes, in a paper read before the N. J. State Horticultural Society, "is to select my pistillates after years of trial, subject them to severe tests, and place alongside of each such a staminate as I think will harmonize and produce a certain desired effect. Another pistillate plant, of the same variety, is placed far away from the last, with a different staminate, and so on, till I exhaust the staminates or perfect-flowering kinds that I wish to test with that pistillate variety. Of late years, I have used but two or three kinds of pistillate plants, and they are a combination of excellence. I never show them to my most intimate friends, and the public know nothing about them. The years of trial and experiment necessary to produce such plants must necessarily discourage a beginner; yet it is the only course that will lead to success." I think that Mr. Durand takes too gloomy a view of the subject, and I can see no reason why any one starting with such pistillates as the Golden Defiance, Champion and others, may not originate a variety superior to any now in existence. At the same time, I must caution against over-sanguine hopes. Mr. Durand states the interesting fact that he generally produces 3,000 new varieties annually, and including the year of '76, he had already originated about 50,000 seedlings. While some of these have already secured great celebrity, like the Great American, I do not know of one that promises to maintain a continued and national popularity. I regard his old Black Defiance and the later Pioneer as his best seedlings, so far as I have seen them. Very many others do not have even his success. We may have to experiment for years before we obtain a seedling worth preserving; nevertheless, in the 156 Success with Small Fruits. heart of each propagator lurks the hope that he may draw the prize of prizes. I will close this chapter with a few simple and practical suggestions. It is not necessary to place the seeds in ice. They may be sown in July, in rich soil, rendered fine and mellow, and in a half-shady position ; and the surface should be kept moist by watering, and a sprinkling of a little very fine compost, that will prevent the ground from baking. Some of the seeds will germinate that season, more will come up the following spring. Or, they may be started in a cold frame under glass, and hastened in their growth so that good-sized plants are ready for the fruiting-bed by September. Mr. Durand plants his seed in the spring, and the seedlings bear the following year. The plants should be set eighteen inches apart each way, in the fruiting-bed. When they blossom, note and mark all the pistillates as such. Those that grow feebly, and whose foliage scalds or burns in the sun, root out at once. The Spartan law of death to the feeble and deformed should be rigorously enforced in the fruit garden. The first year of fruiting will satisfy you that the majority of seedlings are to be thrown away. Those that give special promise should be lifted with a large ball of earth, and planted where they may be kept pure from mixture, and given further trial. Remember that a seedling may do better the first year than ever after, and that only a continued and varied trial can prove its worth. All runners should be kept off, unless the ground is infested with grubs, and there is danger of losing a promising variety of which we have but one specimen. If so fortunate as to raise superior seedlings, test them side by side, and under the same conditions with the best kinds in existence, before calling to them public attention. Try them, also, in light and heavy soils; and, if possible, send them to trusted friends who will subject them to varied climates in widely separated localities. If, however, you find them vigorous and productive on the light, poor soils of your own place, you may hope much for them else- where. No berry will be generally popular that requires much petting. I only state this as a fact. In my opinion, some varieties are so superb in size and flavor that they deserve high culture, and well repay it. It is a question whether, except for the purposes of propagation, pistillate varieties should be preserved and sent out. Mr. Fuller, and others, take ground against them, and their views are entitled to great respect, but with such kinds as the Golden Defiance and Champion in my garden, I am not prepared to condemn them. One objection urged against them is that many purchase a single variety, and, should it prove a pistillate, they would have no fruit. They would not deserve any, if they Originating New Varieties — Hybridization. 157 gave the subject so little attention. Every fruit catalogue states which are pistillates, and their need of a perfect- flowering kind near them. Again, it is urged that this necessary proximity of two kinds leads to mixtures. It need not, and, with the plant grower, can only result from gross careless- ness. The different beds may be yards apart. In order to secure thorough fertilization, it is not at all necessary to plant so near that the two kinds can run together. In a large field of pistillates, every tenth row should be of a staminate, blossoming at the same time with the pistillate. The Kentucky seedling is a first-class staminate, but it should not be used to fertilize the Crescent, since the latter would almost be out of bloom before the former began to blossom. Plant early pistillates with early staminates, and late with late. Many ask me, " Do strawberries mix by being planted near each other ? " They mix only by running together, so that you can scarcely distinguish the two kinds ; but a Wilson plant will produce Wilson runners to the end of time, and were one plant surrounded by a million other varieties, it would still maintain the Wilson characteristics. It is through the seeds, and seeds only, that one variety has any appreciable effect upon another. Many have confused ideas on this point. A man brought to the Centennial Exhibition, at Philadelphia, a pot of strawberries that attracted great attention, for the fruit was magnificent. I suggested to him that it resembled the Jucunda, and he said that it was a cross between that berry and the Seth Boyden. This was a combination that promised so well that I went twenty miles, on a very hot day, to see his bed, and found that the crossing was simply the interlacing of the runners of the two distinct varieties, and that I could tell the intermingled Jucunda and Boyden plants apart at a glance. Such crossing would make no marked change in varieties if continued for centuries. The enemies and diseases of the strawberry will be grouped in a general chapter on these subjects. CHAPTER XIX. RASPBERRIES — SPECIES, HISTORY, PROPAGATION, ETC. I HAVE given the greater part of this volume to the subject of straw- berries, not only because it is the most popular fruit, but also for the reason that the principles of thorough preparation of the soil, drainage, culture, &c., apply equally to the other small fruits. Those who have followed me carefully thus far, can soon master the conditions of success which apply to the fruits still to be treated. I shall now consider a fruit which is only second in value, and, by many, even preferred to all the others. Like the strawberry, the raspberry is well connected, since it, also, belongs to the Rose family. It has a perennial root, producing biennial woody stems that reach a height of from three to six feet. Varieties, however, differ greatly in this respect. Usually, the stems or canes do not bear until the second year, and that season ends their life, their place being taken by a new growth from the root. The flowers are white or red, very unobtrusive, and rich in sweetness. The discriminating bees forsake most other flowers while the raspberry blossoms last. The pistils on the convex receptacle mature into a collection of small drupes, or stone fruits, of the same character as the cherry, plum, etc., and the seeds within the. drupes are miniature pits. These drupes adhere together, forming round or conical caps, which will drop from the receptacle when over- ripe. I have seen the ground covered with the fruit of certain varieties, when picking has been delayed. 158 Raspberries — Species, History -, Propagation, Etc. 159 All peoples seem to have had a feeling sense of the spines, or thorns, of this plant, as may be gathered from its name in different languages ; the Italian term is Raspo, the Scotch Raspis, and the German Kratsberre, or Scratchberry. The Greeks traced the raspberry to Mount Ida, and the original bush may have grown in the shadowy glade where the " Shepherd Alexandre," alias Paris, son of Priam, King of Troy, gave his fateful decision in favor of Venus. Juno and Minerva undoubtedly beguiled the time, while the favored goddess presented her claims, by eating the fruit, and, perhaps, enhanced their competitive beauty by touching their cheeks with an occasional berry. At any rate, the raspberry of the ancients is Rubus Idceus. The elder Pliny, who wrote not far from 45 A. D., states that the Greeks distinguished the raspberry bramble by the term " Idcza" and, like so many other Grecian ideas, it has found increasing favor ever since. Mr. A. S. Fuller, one of the best- read authorities on these subjects, writes that " Paladius, a Roman agricultural author, who flourished in the fourth century, mentions the raspberry as one of the cultivated fruits of his time.'* It thus appears that it was promoted to the garden long before the straw- berry was so honored. While it is true that the raspberry in various forms is found wild throughout the continent, and that the ancient gardeners in most instances obtained their supply of plants in the adjacent fields or forests, the late Mr. A. J. Downing is of the opinion that the large-fruited foreign varieties are descendants of the " Mount Ida Bramble," and from that locality were introduced into the gardens of Southern Europe. In America, two well-known and distinct species are enriching our gardens and gracing our tables with their healthful fruit. We will first name R. Strigosus, or the wild red raspberry, almost as dear to our memory as the wild strawberry. It grows best along the edge of woodlands and in half-shadowy places that seem equally adapted to lovers' rambles. In just such a nook as we perhaps recall, the artist has portrayed a youth who, with a cluster of the ruby fruit, is heightening the effect of love's shy signals. The crimson, melting berry is the type of their present experience. The fates forbid that the Scotch term, Raspis, should suggest what is to come \ Nature, too, in a kindly mood, seems to have scattered the seeds of this fruit along the road-side, thus fringing the highway in dusty, hot July with ambrosial food. Professor Gray thus describes the native red species : " R. Strigosus, Wild Red R. Common, especially North ; from two to three feet high ; i6o Success with Small Fruits. the upright stems, stalks, etc., beset with copious bristles, and some of them becoming weak prickles, also glandular ; leaflets oblong-ovate, pointed, cut-serrate, white-downy beneath, the lateral ones (either one or Nature's Rouge. two pairs) not stalked ; petals as long as the sepals ; fruit light-red, tender and watery, but high flavored, ripening all summer." The second great American species, R. Occidentalis, will be described hereafter. Since this book is not designed to teach botany, I shall not refer to the other species, — R. Trifloms, R. Odoratns, R. Nutkanno, etc., — which are of no practical value, and, for the present, will confine myself to the propagation and cultivation of R. Id&us and R. Strigosus, and their seedlings. PROPAGATION. Usually, varieties of these two species throw up suckers from the roots in sufficient abundance for all practical purposes, and these young canes from between the hills or rows are, in most instances, the Propagation. 161 plants of commerce, and the means of extending our plantations. But where a variety is scarce, or the purpose is to increase it rapidly, we can dig out the many interlacing roots that fill the soil between the hills, cut them into two-inch pieces, and each may be developed within a year into a good plant. Fall is the best season for making root cuttings, and it can be continued as late as the frost permits. My method is to store the roots in a cellar, and cut them from time to time, after out-of-door work is over. I have holes bored in the bottom of a box to insure drainage, spread over it two inches of moist (not wet) earth, then an inch layer of the root cut- tings, a thin layer of earth again, then cuttings until the box is full. If the cellar is cool and free from frost, the cuttings may be kept there until spring ; or the boxes containing them can be buried so deeply on a dry knoll in a garden as to be below frost. Leaves piled above them insure safety. Make sure that the boxes are buried where no water can collect either on or beneath the surface. Before new roots can be made by a cut- ting, a whitish excrescence appears at both its ends, called the callus, and from this the rootlets start out. This essential process goes on throughout the winter, and therefore the 'advantage of making cuttings in the fall. Occasionally, in the fall, we may obtain a variety that we are anxious to increase, in which case some of the roots may be taken off for cuttings before setting out the plants. These little root-slips may be sown, as one would sow peas, early in the spring, as soon as the ground is dry enough to work. A plot of rich, moist land should be chosen, and the soil made mellow and fine, as if for seed ; drills should then be opened eighteen inches apart, two inches deep on heavy land, and three inches deep on light. The cuttings must now be dropped three inches from each other in the little furrows, the ground leveled over them and firmed, which is best done by walking on a board laid on the covered drill, or else by the use of a garden roller. If the entire cutting-bed were well sprinkled with fine compost, and then covered so lightly — from one-quarter to half an inch — with a mulch of straw that the shoots could come through it without hindrance, scarcely a cutting would fail. Unfailing moisture, without wetness, is what a cutting requires. Roots may be divided into half-inch bits, if forced under glass, and in this way nurserymen often speedily provide themselves with large stocks of very scarce varieties. The cuttings are placed in boxes of sand until the callus forms, and little buds appear on the surface of the roots, for which processes about five weeks are required. They are then sown in shallow boxes containing about three inches of soil, formed of equal parts 21 1 62 Success with Small Fruits. of sand and decayed leaves, and subjected to the heat of the green-house. When they have formed plants from three to five inches high, they may be potted, if very valuable ; or, if the weather is warm enough, they can be transplanted at once into the open nursery-bed, as one would a strawberry plant I have set out many thousands in this way, only aiming to keep a little earth clinging to the roots as I took them from the shallow box. Plants grown from cuttings are usually regarded as the best ; but if a sucker plant is taken up with fibrous roots, I should regard it as equally good. If we wish to try our fortune in originating new varieties, we gather the largest and earliest berries, dry them and plant the seeds the following spring ; or we may separate the seeds from the pulp by express- ing it and mixing them with dry sand, until they are in a condition to be sown evenly in a sheltered place at once. As with strawberries, they should be raked lightly into moist, rich soil, the surface of which should not be allowed to become dry and hard. The .probabilities are that they will germinate early in the spring and produce canes strong enough to bear the second year. If the seed is from a kind that cannot endure frost, the young plant should receive thorough winter protection. There is nothing better than a covering of earth. In the spring of the second year, cut the young plant down to the ground, and it will send up a strong, vigorous cane, whose appearance and fruit will give a fair suggestion of its value the third year. Do not be sure of a prize, even though the berries are superb and the new variety starts off most vigorously. Let me give a bit of experience. In a fine old garden, located in the center of the city of Newburgh, N. Y., my attention was attracted by the fruit of a raspberry bush whose roots were so inter- laced with those of a grape-vine that they could not be separated. It scarcely seemed to have a fair chance to live at all, and yet it was loaded with the largest and most delicious red raspberries that I had then ever seen. It was evidently a chance, and very distinct seedling. I obtained from Mr. T. H. Roe, the proprietor of the garden, permission to propagate the variety, and in the autumn removed a number of the canes to my place at Cornwall. My first object was to learn whether it was hardy, and, therefore, not the slightest protection was given the canes at Newburgh, nor even to those removed to my own place, some of which were left four feet high for the sake of this test. The winter that followed was one of the severest known ; the mercury sank to 30° below zero, but not a plant at either locality was injured; and in the old garden a cane fourteen feet long, that rested on the grape-arbor, was alive to the tip, and in July was loaded with the most beautiful fruit I had Propagation. \ 63 ever seen. It was uninjured by the test of another winter, and all who saw and tasted the fruit were enthusiastic in its praise. The Massa- chusetts Horticultural Society awarded it their first premium, and Mr. Charles Downing said it was the finest red raspberry he had ever seen. The veteran horticulturist, Mr. Wm. Parry, who has had between forty and fifty years of experience in small fruits, visited my place that summer. The bushes he saw had never received any protection, and had already been three weeks in bearing, but they were still full of fruit. After picking several berries that measured plump three inches in cir- cumference, he said, quietly, "Put me down for 500 plants." In no other I way could he have stated his favorable opinion more emphatically. It was as delicious as it was large and beautiful, and surely I was reasonable in expecting for it a brilliant future. In my faith, I planted it largely myself, expecting to make it my main dependence as a market berry. But in August, of that year, many of the canes lost their foliage. Those that thus suffered were not entirely hardy the following winter. It was | eventually made clear that it belonged to the tender Rubus Idceus class, and, therefore, was not adapted to general cultivation, especially on light soils, and under sunny skies. As I have shown, its start was so full of vigor and promise that it won the favor and confidence of the | horticultural veterans ; but it suddenly manifested lack of stamina and I sturdy persistence in well-doing. And this is just the trouble which every j experienced propagator dreads. Only after years of test and trial in many I localities can he be assured that his seedling may become a standard variety. If this chance seedling, the Pride of the Hudson, is given a moist I soil in some half-shady location, it will yield fruit that will delight the amateur's heart, but, like Brinkle's Orange, which it resembles in flavor, only amateurs will give it the petting it requires. As suggested when treating the strawberry, so in seeking to originate new varieties of raspberries, our aim should be to develop our hardy native species, the R. Strigosus, and, if we employ the R. Idceus class for parentage on one side, seek its most vigorous representatives, such as the Belle de Fontenaye and Franconia. CHOICE OF LAND — ITS PREPARATION — PLANTING. All that has been said about the thorough preparation of the soil for strawberries, by drainage, deep plowing, trenching, etc., applies to raspberries, but differences should be noted in respect to fertilizers. Land can scarcely be made too rich for any variety of strawberries, 1 64 Success with Small Fruits. but certain strong-growing raspberries, like the Cuthbert, Herstine, and Turner, should not be over-fertilized. Some kinds demand good, clean culture, rather than a richness that would cause too great a growth of cane and foliage. In contrast, the feebler growing kinds, like the Brandywine, and most of the foreign varieties, require abun- dance of manure. Muck, sweetened by lime and frost, is one of the simplest and best ; but anything will answer that is not too full of heat and ferment. Like the strawberry, the raspberry needs cool manures that have "staying" qualities. Unlike the former fruit, however, the raspberry does well in partial shade, such as that furnished by the northern side of a fence, hedge, etc., by a pear or even apple orchard, if the trees still permit wide intervals of open sky. The red varieties, especially those of the foreign type, much prefer moist, heavy soils ; but the black-caps do quite as well on light ground, if moisture can be maintained. The latter, also, can be grown farther south than any other species ; but below the latitude of New York, those containing foreign elements begin to fail rapidly, until, at last, a point is reached where even the most vigorous native red varieties refuse to live. If the climate, however, is tempered by height above the sea, as in the mountains of Georgia, they will thrive abundantly. I prefer fall planting for raspberries, especially in southern latitudes, for these reasons : At the points where the roots branch (see Fig. A), are buds which make the future stems or canes. In the fall, these are dormant, small, and not easily broken off, as in Fig. B ; but they start early in spring, and if planting is delayed, these become so long and brittle that the utmost Spring and Fall Plants. care can scarcely save them. If rubbed off, the development of good bearing canes is often deferred a year, although the plants may live and fill the ground with roots. The more growth a raspberry plant has made when set out in spring, the greater the probability that it will receive a check, from which it will never recover. Choice of Land — Its Preparation — Planting. 165 I have often planted in May and June, successfully, by taking up the young suckers when from six inches to a foot high, and setting them where they are to grow. Immediately on taking them up, I cut them back so that only one or two inches of the green cane is left, and thus the roots are not taxed to sustain wood and foliage beyond their power. This can often be done to advantage, when the plants are on one's own place, and in moist, cloudy weather. My preference, however, is to plant the latter part of October and through November, in well-prepared and enriched land. The holes are made quite deep and large, and the bottom filled with good surface soil. If possible, before planting, plow and cross- plow deeply, and have a subsoiler follow in each furrow. It should be remembered that we are preparing for a crop which may occupy the land for ten or fifteen years, and plants will suffer from every drouth if set immediately on a hard subsoil. On heavy land, I set the plants one inch deeper than they were before ; on light soils two or ^ three inches deeper. I cut the canes off six inches above the surface (see Fig. C), for leaving long canes is often ruinous, and a plant is , Winter Protection of frequently two or three years in recovering from the strain of trying to produce fruit the first year. The whole strength of the roots should go toward producing bearing canes for the season following ; and to stimulate such growth, I throw directly on the hill one or two shovelfuls of finely rotted compost and then mound the earth over the hill until the cane is wholly covered (as in Fig. D). This prevents all injury from the winter's cold. When severe frosts are over, the mound is leveled down again. Under this system, I rarely lose plants, and usually find that double growth is made compared with those set late in spring. I have always succeeded well, however, in early spring planting; and well to the north, this is, perhaps, the safer season. With the exception of mounding the earth over the hill, plant in March or April as I have already directed. CULTIVATION. In cultivation, keep the ground level — do not let it become banked up against the hills, as is often the case, especially with those tender varieties that 1 66 Success with Small Fruits. are covered with earth every winter. Keep the surface clean and mellow by the use of the cultivator and hoe. With the exception of from four to six canes in the hill, treat all suckers as weeds, cutting them down while they are little — before they have sucked half the life out of the bearing hill. Put a shovelful or two of good compost — any fertilizer is better than none — around the hills or along the rows, late in the fall, and work it lightly in with a fork if 'there is time. The autumn and winter rains will carry it down to the roots, giving almost double vigor and fruitfulness the follow- ing season. If the top-dressing is neglected in the autumn, be sure to give it as early in the spring as possible, and work it down toward the roots. Bone dust, ashes, poudrette, barn-yard manure, and muck with lime can be used alternate years, so as to give variety of plant food, and a plantation thus sustained can be kept twenty years or more ; but under the usual culture, vigor begins to fail after the eighth or tenth season. The first tendency of most varieties of newly set red raspberries is to sucker immoderately ; but this gradually declines, even with the most ram- pant, and under good culture the fruiting qualities improve. In dry weather, the fork should not be used during the growing or bearing season. The turning down of a strata of dry, hot soil next to the roots must cause a sudden check and injury from which only a soaking rain can bring full relief. But in moist weather, and periods preceding and following the blossoming and fruiting season, I have often used the fork to advantage, especially if there is a sod of short, succulent weeds to be turned under as a green crop. If the ground between the hills was stirred frequently with an iron garden- rake, the weeds would not have a chance to start. This is by far the best and cheapest way of maintaining our part in the unceasing conflict with vegetable evil. An Irish bull hits the truth exactly — the best way to fight weeds is to have none to fight; and raking the ground over on a sunny day, about once a week, destroys them when they are as yet but germinating seeds. At the same time, it opens the pores of the earth, as a physiologist might express himself. Unfailing moisture is maintained, air, light and heat are introduced to the roots in accordance with Nature's taste, and the whole strength of the mellow soil goes to produce only that which is useful. But this teaching is like the familiar and sound advice — " Form no bad habits." We do form them ; the weeds do get the start of us, and therefore, as a practical fact, the old moral and physical struggle must go on until the end of time. CHAPTER XX. RASPBERRIES — PRUNING — STAKING — MULCHING — WINTER PROTECTION, ETC. T TSUALLY, there is no pruning either in the field or the garden beyond LJ the cutting out of the old canes and the shortening in of the new growth. There is a difference of opinion as to whether the old canes should be cut out immediately after fruiting, or left to natural decay, and removed the following fall or spring. I prefer the former course. It cer- tainly is neater, and I think I have seen increased growth in the young canes, for which more room is made, and to whose support the roots can give their whole strength. The new growth can make foliage fast enough to develop the roots ; still, I have not experimented carefully, and so cannot speak accurately. We see summer pruning often advocated on paper, but I have rarely met it in practice. If carefully done at the proper season, however, much can be accomplished by it in the way of making strong, stocky plants, capable of standing alone — plants full of lateral branches, like little trees, that will be loaded with fruit. But this summer pinching back must be commenced early, while the new, succulent growth is under full headway, and continued through the busiest season, when strawberries are ripe and harvest is beginning. It should not be done after the cane has practically made its growth, or else the buds that ought to remain dormant until the following season are started into a late and feeble growth that does not ripen before the advent of early frosts. Few have time for pruning in May or June. If they have, let them try it by all means, especially on the black- cap species. It does not require so 1 68 Success with Small Fruits. much time as it does prompt action at the proper period of growth. In the garden, summer pinching can transform a raspberry bush into an orna- mental shrub as beautiful as useful. It is much better adapted to the hardier varieties than to those that must be bent down and covered with earth. With the R. Occidentalis species, summer pinching would always pay well. The best I can do, usually, with the red varieties, is to prune in November and March — it should be done before the buds develop. Unless early fruit is wanted, I believe in cutting back heroically. Nature once gave me a very useful hint. One very cold winter, a row of Clarke raspberries was left unprotected. The canes were four or five feet high, but were killed down to the snow-level, or within eighteen inches of the ground ; but from what was left uninjured, we had as many and far finer berries than were gathered from other rows where the canes had been left their full length and protected by a covering of earth. The fruit was later, however. I would remind careful observers of the raspberry how often buds on canes that have been broken off or cut away back develop into long sprays, enormously fruitful of the largest berries. I have counted fifty, and even eighty, berries on a branch that had grown from a single bud within one or two feet of the ground. These lower buds often do not start at all when the canes are left their full, or nearly their full length. In the latter case, the fruit ripens much earlier and more together, and since an early crop, though inferior in quality and quantity, may be more valuable than a late one, the fruit grower often objects to pruning. But in the garden, while the canes of some early kinds are left their full length, I would recommend that others, especially those of the later varieties, be cut back one-half. Even for market purposes, I believe that the superb fruit resulting from such pruning would bring more money in most instances. At any rate, the season of bearing would be greatly prolonged. Mulching on a large scale would not pay in most localities. In regions where salt hay, flags, etc., can be cut in abundance, or when straw is so plenty as to be of little value, it no doubt could be applied profitably. On Staten Island, I have seen large patches mulched with salt hay. The canes were unstaked, and many of them bent over on the clean hay with their burden of fruit. When there are no stakes or other support used, the berries certainly should be kept from contact with the soil. The chief advantage of the mulch, however, is in the preservation of moisture. When it is given freely, all the fruit perfects, and in a much longer succession. The weeds and suckers are kept down, and the patch has a neat appear- ance. Moreover, mulching prevents the foliage from burning, and enables the gardener to grow successfully the finer varieties farther to the south Pruning — Staking — Mulching — Winter Protection, Etc. 169 and on light soils. In keeping down the weeds through the long summer, a mulch of leaves, straw, or any coarse litter, is often far less costly than would be the labor required. Staking raspberries is undoubtedly the best, simplest and cheapest method of supporting the canes of most varieties and in most localities. I agree with the view taken by Mr. A. S. Fuller. " Chestnut stakes," he writes, " five feet long and two or three inches in diameter, made from large trees, cost me less than two cents each, and my location is within twenty miles of New York city, where timber of all kinds commands a large price. I cannot afford to grow raspberries without staking, because every stake will save on an average ten cents' worth of fruit, and, in many instances, three times that amount." Of course, split chestnut stakes look the neatest and last the longest ; but a raspberry bush is not fastidious, and I utilize old bean-poles, limbs of trees — anything that keeps the canes from sprawling in the dirt with their delicate fruit. Thus, in many instances, the stakes will cost little more than a boy's labor in preparing them, and they can be of various lengths, according to the height of our canes. As they become too much decayed for further use, they make a cheery blaze on the hearth during the early autumn evenings. There are stocky growing varieties, like the Cuthbert, Turner, Hers tine and others, that by summer pruning or vigorous cutting back would be self-supporting, if not too much exposed to high winds. The question is a very practical one, and should be decided largely by ex- perience and the grower's locality. There are fields and regions in which gales, and especially thunder -gusts, would prostrate into the dirt the stoutest bushes that could be formed by summer pruning, breaking down canes heavy with green and ripe fruit. In saving a penny stake, a bit of string, and the moment required for tying, one might be made to feel, after a July storm, that he had been too thrifty. As far as my experience and observation go, I would either stake all my bushes that stood separately and singly, or else would grow them in a loose, continuous, bushy row, and keep the fruit clean by some kind of mulch. Splashed, muddy berries are not fit either to eat or to sell. 22 a. Canes snugly tied. b. Canes improperly tied. Right and Wrong Ways of Tying Canes. I/O Success with Small Fruits. In many localities, however, stakes are dispensed with. In the garden, wires, fastened to posts, are occasionally stretched along the rows, and the canes tied to these. The method in this section, however, is to insert stakes firmly in the hill, by means of a pointed crowbar, and the canes are tied to them as early in spring as possible. Unless watched, the boys who do the tying persist in leaving the upper cords of the canes loose. These unsupported ends, when weighted with fruit and foliage, break, of course. The canes should be snugly tied their whole length. If bushes made stocky by summer pruning are supported, let the stake be inserted on the side opposite from which heavy winds are expected. WINTER PROTECTION — TAKING UP PLANTS FOR SPRING USE — STORING THEM. Nearly 'all foreign varieties and their seedlings need winter protection, or are the better for it, north of the latitude of New York city. Many of the hardier kinds, like the Herstine and Clarke, will usually survive if bent over and kept close to the earth by the weight of poles or a shovelful or two of soil ; but all of the Antwerp class need to be entirely covered. To many, this winter covering is a great bugbear, even when only a small patch in the garden is involved. There is a constant demand for " perfectly hardy " varieties. It should be remembered that many of the best kinds are not hardy at all, and that perhaps none are " perfectly hardy." The Turner has never been injured on my place, and the Cuthbert is rarely hurt; but occasionally they are partially killed, more by alternations of freezing and thawing than by steady cold. What are termed " open winters " are often the most destruct- ive. I find that it pays to cover all those kinds that are liable to injury, and, as the varieties are described, Pruning and Laying Down Canes. this need will be distinctly stated. The difficulties of covering are chiefly imaginary, and it can be done by the acre at comparatively Winter Protection — Taking up Plants for Spring Use. 17 1 slight cost. The vast crops of the Hudson River Antwerp were raised from fields covered every fall. In the garden, I do not consider the labor worth naming in comparison with the advantages secured. Those who find time to carefully cover their cabbages and gather turnips should not talk of the trouble of protecting a row of delicious Herstine raspberries. Still, Nature is very indulgent to the lazy, and has given us as fine a raspberry as the Cuthbert, which, thus far with but few exceptions, has endured our Northern winters. In November, I have the labor of covering performed in the following simple way : B is a hill with canes untrimmed. C, the canes have been shortened one- third — my rule in pruning. After trimming, the canes are ready to be laid down, and they should all be bent one way. To turn them sharply over and cover them with earth, would cause many of the Storage Ground for Raspberries, Currants, etc. stronger ones to break just above the root, so I have a shovelful of soil thrown on one side of the hill, as in Fig. C, and the canes bent over this little mound. They thus describe a curve, instead of lying at right angles on the surface, with a weight of earth upon them. A boy holds the cane down, while a man on either side of the row rapidly shovels the earth upon them. If the work is to be done on a large scale, one or two shovelfuls will pin the canes to the earth, and then, by throwing a furrow over them on both sides with a plow, the labor is soon accomplished. It will be necessary to follow the plow with a shovel, and increase the covering here and there. In spring, as soon as hard frosts are over, the first week in April, in our latitude, usually, — begin at the end of the row toward which the canes were bent, and with a fork throw and push the earth aside and Success with Small Fruits. gently lift the canes out of the soil, taking pains to level the ground thoroughly, and not leave it heaped up against the hills. This should not be done when the earth is wet and sticky. Keep off the ground at such times, unless the season is growing so late that there is danger of the canes decaying if not exposed to the air. The sooner they are staked and tied up after uncovering, the better. For market or other purposes, we may wish a number of young plants, in which case there is much room for good sense in taking them up. Many lay hold upon the canes and pull so hastily that little save sticks come out. A gardener wants fibrous roots rather than top : therefore, send the spade down under the roots and pry them out. Suckers and root-cutting plants can be dug in October, after the wood has fairly ripened, but be care- ful to leave no foliage on the canes that are taken up before the leaves fall, for they rapidly drain the vitality of the plants. It is best to cut the canes down to within a foot of the surface before digging. I prefer taking up all plants for sale or use in the latter part of October and November, and those not set out or disposed of are stored closely in trenches, with the roots a foot or more below the surface. By thus burying them deeply and by leaving on them a heavy covering of leaves, they are kept in a dormant state quite late in spring, and so can be handled without breaking off the buds which make the future canes. But, as we have already said, the earlier they are planted after the frost is out, the better. t CHAPTER XXI. RASPBERRIES — VARIETIES OF THE FOREIGN AND NATIVE SPECIES. r I AHIS chapter will treat first of the imported kinds, which usually are .1. more or less tender, and then, by way of contrast, of the hardy varie- ties of our native R. Strigosus. I shall speak of those only that are now in general cultivation, naming a few, also, whose popularity in the past has been so great as to entitle them to mention. As was true of strawberries, so also varieties of raspberries, that won name and fame abroad, were imported, and a few of them have adapted themselves so well to American soil and climate as to have become standards of excellence. Among the best-known of these formerly was the Red Antwerp of England. Few old-fashioned gardens were without it at one time, but it is fast giving way to newer and more popular varie- ties. The canes are vigorous, stocky and tall ; spines light- red, numerous and rather strong. Winter protection is always needed. The berries are large and very obtuse conical, dark-red, large-grained, and covered with a thick bloom, very juicy, and exceedingly soft — too much so for market purposes. They made a dainty dish for home use, however, and our grandmothers, when maidens, gathered them in the lengthening summer shadows. The Hudson River Antwerp, the most celebrated foreign berry in America, is quite distinct from the above, although belonging to the same family. It is shorter and more slender in its growth, quite free 173 174 Success with Small Fruits. from spines, and its canes are of a peculiar mouse-color. Its fruit is even larger, but firm, decidedly conical, not very bright when fally ripe, and rather dry, but sweet and agreeable in flavor. Mr. Downing says that its origin is unknown, and that it was brought to this country by Gathering a Dainty Dish. the late Mr. Briggs, of Poughkeepsie, N. Y. " As this gentleman was leaving England " (thus the story is told, Mr Downing writes to me), " he visited a friend to say good-bye, and solicited this new raspberry. Since he was leaving the country, and could cause no injury to the sale of plants, his friend gave him a few in parting, although three guineas Varieties of the Foreign and Native Species. 175 had been refused for a single plant hitherto, in the careful effort to secure a large stock before putting the variety on the market" Its name suggests Belgium as its original home. This Antwerp continues long in bearing, and the berries begin to ripen early. The good carrying qualities of the fruit, combined with great productiveness, made it at one time the most profitable market berry in this section ; but its culture was chiefly confined to a narrow strip on the west shore of the Hudson, extending from Cornwall to Kingston. For some obscure reasons, it did not thrive in other local- ities, and now it appears to be failing fast in its favorite haunt. A disease called the "curl-leaf" is destroying some of the oldest and largest plantations, and the growers are looking about for hardier and more vigorous varieties. But in its palmy days, and even still, the Hudson River Antwerp was one of the great productions of the country, sending barges and steamers nightly to New York laden with ruby cones, whose aroma was often very distinct on the lee shore while the boats were passing. This enormous business had in part a chance and curious origin, and a very small beginning ; while the celebrated variety itself, which eventually covered so many hundreds of acres on the west bank of the Hudson, may be traced back through two lines of ancestry. An English gardener, who probably obtained the plants from Mr. Briggs, gave some of them to a Mr. Samuel Barnes, who resided in Westchester County. From him, Mr. Thos. H. Burling, of New Rochelle, N. Y., secured an abundant supply for his home garden. Here its value was observed by Mr. Nathaniel Hallock, who transferred some of the canes to his place at Milton, N. Y. From his garden they spread over many fields beside his own. In respect to the other line of ancestry of this historical berry, I am indebted for the following facts to Mr. W. C. Young, of Marl- boro', N. Y. : Many years ago, a bundle of raspberry plants was left at a meat-market in Poughkeepsie, and Mr. Watters, the proprietor of the place, kept them several days, expecting that they would be called for. As they remained upon his hands, he planted them in his garden, where, like genuine worth, they soon asserted their superiority. Mr. Edward Young, of Marlboro', a relative of Mr. Watters, received a present of a few roots, which supplied his family with the largest and most beautiful berries he had ever seen. Good propagates itself as well as evil if given a chance, and Mr. Young soon had far more fruit than was needed by his family, and he resolved to try the fortunes of his favorite in New York market. " For this purpose," his son writes, " my 176 Success with Small Fruits. Antwerp Class of Raspberries Varieties of the Foreign and Native Species. 177 father procured imported fancy willow baskets, holding about one pint each, and carefully packed these in crates made for the purpose. This mode proved a success, both in carrying them securely and in making them very attractive. The putting up such a fine variety of fruit in this way gave it notoriety at once, and it brought at first as much as one dollar per quart. My father was so well satisfied with his experiment that he advised his sons, Alexander, Edward and myself, to extend the culture of this variety largely. We entered into the business, and, pursuing it with diligence, were well compensated. Our success HHH^B!^' made others desirous of engaging in it, and so it spread out into its large dimensions." Mr. Taber's The Rush for the Night Boat graphic picture of " Rush for the night boat " suggests how extensive that business became. The line of wagons at Marlboro' Landing was often nearly half a mile long. Mr. Alexander Young estimates that in the year 1858 1,000,000 pint baskets, or about 14,700 bushels, 23 1/8 Success with Small Fruits. were shipped from Marlboro' ; but adds that, since " 1860 it has decreased as fast. From present appearances, the variety must become extinct, and I fear will never have its equal." Milton, Cornwall, Newburgh, The Approach of the Night Boat. and other points competed in the profitable industry, and now, with Marlboro', are replacing the failing variety with other kinds more vigorous in growth, but thus far inferior in quality. That the great industry is not falling off is shown by the following statement, taken from the New York Tribune in the summer of 1879: " The village of. Highland, opposite Poughkeepsie, runs a berry boat daily to New York, and the large night steamers are now taking out immense loads of raspberries from the river towns every evening, having at times nearly 2,000 bushels on board." ' From as careful a computation as I have been able to make, through the courtesy of the officers of the large Kingston boats, the Baldwin and Cornell, I am led to believe that these two steamers unitedly carried to the city over twenty thousand bushels of berries that same year. The magni- tude of this industry on the Hudson will be still better realized when it is Varieties of the Foreign and Native Species. 179 remembered that several other freight boats divide this traffic with the Kingston steamers. When we consider what a delicate and perishable fruit this is, it can be understood that gathering and packing it properly is no bagatelle. Some- times you will find the fruit grower's family in the field, from the matron down to the little ones that cannot reach the highest berries. But the home force is wholly insufficient, and any one who will pick — man, woman or child — is employed. Therefore, drifting through the river towns during June and July, are found specimens almost as picturesque, if not so highly colored, as those we saw at Norfolk, — poor whites from the back country and mountains ; people from the cities on a humble " lark," who cannot afford to rusticate at a hotel ; semi-tramps, who have not attained to the final stage of aristocratic idleness, wherein the offer of work is an insult which they resent by burning a barn. Rude shanties, with bunks, are fitted up to give all the shelter they require. Here they lead a gypsy life, quite as much to their taste as camping in the Adirondacks, cooking and smoking through the June twilight, and as oblivious of the exquisite scenery about Picking Raspberries on a Hill-side. them as the onion-eating peasants of Italy ; but when picking the fruit on a sunny slope, and half hidden by the raspberry bushes, Nature blends them with the scene so deftly that even they become picturesque. i8o Success with Small Fruits. The little round " thirds," as they are termed, into which the berries are gathered, are carried out of the sunlight to sheds and barns ; the packer receives them, giving tickets in exchange, and then, too often with the deliberation and ease induced by the summer heat, packs them in crates. As a result, there is frequently a hurry-scurry later in the day to get the berries off in time. The sketches from Mr. A. G. Clark's thriving fruit farm are suggestive portraitures of certain phases of midsummer life in the Hudson raspberry regions. The Fastollf, Northumberland Fillbasket, and Knevett's Giant are fine old English varieties that are found in private gardens, but have never made their way into general favor. The Franconia is now the best foreign variety we have. It was intro- duced from Paris by Mr. S. G. Perkins, of Boston, about thirty-seven years ago, and is a large, obtuse conical berry, firm, thus carrying well to market, and although a little sour, its acid is of a rich, sprightly character. It is raised largely in Western New York, and in northern latitudes is one of the most profitable. It is almost hardy in the vicinity of Rochester, receiving by some growers no winter protection. Its lack of hardiness with us, and farther southward, is due to its tendency — common to nearly all foreign berries — to lose its foliage in August. I am inclined to think that it would prove one of the most profitable in Canada, and that if it were simply pinned down to the surface of the ground, and thus kept under the deep snows, it would rarely suffer from the cold. It should be distinctly understood that the climate of Canada, if winter protection is given, — indeed, I may say, without protection, — is far better adapted to tender raspberries than that of New Jersey, Virginia, or even Pennsylvania. The long continuance of the Franconia in bearing is one of its best qualities. We usually enjoy its fruit for six weeks together. Its almost globular shape is in contrast with another excellent French variety, the Belle de Fontenay, a large, long, conical, but somewhat irregular-shaped berry of very superior flavor. Mr. Fuller says that it is entirely hardy. It survives the winter without protection on my grounds. The canes are very stocky and strong, and unless growing thickly together are branching. Its most marked characteristic, however, is a second crop in autumn, pro- duced on the tips of the new canes. If the canes of the previous year are cut even with the ground early in spring, the new growth gives a very abundant autumn crop of berries, which, although much inclined to crumble in picking, and to be irregular in shape, have still the rare flavor of a delicious fruit long out of season. It certainly is the best of the fall-bearing kinds, and deserves a place in every garden. There are Varieties of the Foreign and Native Species. Franconia and Belle de Fontenay Rasp- berries, with an autumn branch of the latter. more profitable market varie- ties, however; but, if the suckers are vigorously destroyed, and the bearing canes cut well back, the fruit is often very large, abundant and attractive, bring- ing the highest prices. As a plantation grows older, the tendency to sucker immoder- ately decreases, and the fruit improves. Its autumn bearing trait is shown by the engraving of a loaded tip, cut in October, and the late berries are seen to be very different in appear- ance from those that mature in July. The Belle de Pallua and Hornet are also French varieties, that in some sections yield fine fruit, but are too uncertain to become favorites in our country. 1 82 Success with Small Fruits. I have a few canes of a French variety, that Mr. Downing imported a number of years since, and of which the name has been lost It certainly is the finest raspberry I have ever seen, and I am testing its adaptation to various soils. Having named the best-known foreign varieties, I will now turn to R. Strigosus, or our native species, which is scattered almost everywhere throughout the North. In its favorite haunts by road-side hedge and open glade in the forest, a bush is occasionally found producing such fine fruit that the delighted discoverer marks it, and in the autumn transfers it to his garden. As a result, a new variety is often heralded throughout the land. A few of these wildings have become widely popular, and among them the Brandywine probably has had the most noted career. Mr. William Parry, of New Jersey, who has been largely interested in this variety, writes to me as follows : " I have never been able to trace the origin of this berry. It attracted attention some eight or ten years since in the Wilmington market, and was for a time called the ' Wilmington.' " Subsequently, Mr. Edward Tatnall, of that city, undertook to introduce it by the name of Susqueco, the Indian name for the Brandywine. It soon became the principal raspberry grown along the Brandywine Creek, and, as the market-men would persist in calling it after its chief haunt, it will probably bear the historical name until it passes wholly out of favor. Its popularity is already on the wane, because of its dry texture and insipid flavor, but its bright color, good size, and especially its firmness and remark- able carrying qualities, will ever lead to its ready sale in the market. It is not a tall, vigorous grower, except in very rich land. The young canes are usually small, slender, of a pale red color, and have but few spines. Like nearly all the R. Strigosus species, it tends to sucker immoderately. If this disposition is rigorously checked by hoe and cultivator it is productive; otherwise the bearing canes are choked and rendered Comparatively unfruitful. This variety is waning before the Cuthbert — a larger and much better berry. The Turner is another of this class, and, in Mr. Charles Downing's opinion, is the best of them. It was introduced by Professor J. B. Turner, of Illinois, and is a great favorite in many parts of the West. It has behaved well on my place for several years, and I am steadily increasing my stock of it. I regard it as the hardiest raspberry in cultivation, and a winter must be severe, indeed, that injures it. Like the Crescent Seedling straw- Varieties of the Foreign and Native Species. 183 Native Raspberries of America. (Rubus Strigosus.) berry, it will grow anywhere, and under almost any condi- tions. The laziest man on the continent can have its fruit in abundance, if he can muster sufficient spirit to put out a few roots, and hoe out all the suckers except five or six in the hill. It is early, and in flavor sur- passes all of its class ; the fruit is only 184 Success with Small Fruits. moderately firm. Plant a few in some out-of-the-way place, and it will give the largest return for the least amount of labor of any kind with which I am acquainted. The canes are very vigorous, of a golden reddish-brown, like mahogany, over which spreads in many places a purple bloom, like that on a grape, and which rubs off at the touch. It is almost free from spines, and so closely resembles the " Southern Thornless " in all respects that I cannot distinguish between them. The Turner is a fine example of the result of persistent well-doing. After having been treated slightingly and written down at the East for ten years or more, it is now steadily winning its way toward the front rank. Mr. A. S. Fuller, who has tried most of the older varieties, says that he keeps a patch of it for his own use, because it gives so much good fruit with so little trouble. I shall give its origin in Professor Turner's own words, as far as possible: "Soon after I came to Illinois, in 1833, I obtained, through a friend from the East, some raspberries sold to me as the 'Red Antwerp/ I do not know or believe that there was at that time any other red raspberry within one hundred miles of this place. Indeed, I have never seen a native wild red raspberry in the State, though it may be there are some. I found the Antwerp would not stand our climate, but by extreme care I protected it one winter, and it bore some fruit. I con- ceived the idea of amusing my leisure hours from college duty by raising new seedling raspberries, strawberries, etc., that would be adapted to the climate of the State. I had only a small garden spot, no particular knowledge of the business, and no interest in it outside of the public good. I read upon the subject, as far as I then could, and planted and nursed my seedlings. Out of hundreds or thousands sown, I got one good early strawberry, which had a local run for a time ; one fair blackberry, but no grapes or raspberries that seemed worth anything. The seeds of the raspberries were sown in ? bed back of my house, and the shoots reserved were all nurtured on thx, same bed. After I supposed them to be a failure, I set out an arbor vitae hedge directly across the raspberry bed, making some effort to destroy the canes so that the little cedars might grow. Sometimes, when they were in the way of the cedars they were hoed out. If any of them bore berries, the fowls doubtless destroyed them, or the children ate them before they ripened, until the cedars got so high as to give them pro- tection. Then the children found the ripe fruit, and reported it to me. I have not the least doubt but this raspberry came from a seed of Varieties of the Foreign and Native Species. 185 the plants obtained from the East as the Red Antwerp. The original canes may have been false to name, or a mixture of the true and false. Whatever they were, they bore good, red berries, which I supposed to be Antwerps, but the canes were so tender as to be worth- less. It is wholly impossible that the new variety should have come from any other seed than that sown by me where the vitae hedge now stands." This letter is very interesting in showing how curiously some of our best varieties originate. Moreover, it suggests a dilemma. How is it possi- ble that an Antwerp — one of the most tender varieties — could have been the parent of the hardiest known raspberry ? How could a sort having every characteristic of our native R. Strigosus spring direct from R. Idceus ? I have been familiar with the Antwerps all my life, and can see no trace of them in this hardy berry. Mr. A. S. Fuller writes to me, "The Turner is a true native — R. Strigosus" \ and Mr. Charles Downing holds the same opinion. Hence, I am led to believe that there was a native variety among the plants the professor obtained from the East, or that a seed of a native was dropped among the cedars by a bird, or brought thither in the roots of the cedars. Be this as it may, Professor Turner's good motives have been rewarded and he has given the public an excellent raspberry. In connection with this subject, Mr. Fuller added the following fact, which opens to the amateur a very interesting field for experiment : " If there is any doubt in regard to such matters, raise a few seedlings of the variety, and if it is a cross or hybrid, a part of the seedlings will revert back to each parent, or so near them that there will be no difficulty in determining that there was a mixture of blood. If all our so-called hybrid fruits were thus tested, we would then know more of their true parentage." In the sunny laboratory of the garden, therefore, Nature's chemistry will resolve these juicy compounds back into their original constituents. The Highland Hardy, or Native, also belongs to this species, and is quite a favorite still in some localities ; but it has had its day, I think. Its extreme earliness has made it profitable in some regions ; but its softness, small size and wretched flavor should banish it from cultivation as soon as possible. There are others, like the Thwack, Pearl, and Bristol ; they are but second- rate, being inferior in most regions to the Brandy wine, which they resemble. In my opinion, the chief value of R. Strigosus is to be found in two facts. In the first place, they endure the severe Northern winters, and — what is of far more consequence — their best representatives thrive on light soils, and their tough foliage does not burn under the hot sun. It thus becomes the one species of red raspberry that can be raised success- fully in the South, and from it, as a hardy stock, we should seek to develop the raspberries of the future. 24 CHAPTER XXII. RUBUS OCCIDENTALIS — BLACK-CAP AND PURPLE CANE RASPBERRIES. WE now turn to the other great American species — Rubus Occi- dentalis — the well-known black- cap, or thimble berry, that is found along almost every road- side and fence in the land. There are few little people who have not stained their lips and fingers, not to mention their clothes, with this homely favorite. I can recall the days when, to the horror of the laundress, I filled my pockets with the juicy caps. It is scarcely necessary to recall its long, rambling, purple shoots, its light-green foliage, silvery on the under side, its sharp and abundant spines, from which we have received many a vicious scratch. Its cultivation is so simple that it may be suggested in a few sentences. It does not produce suckers, like R. Strigosus, but the tips of the drooping branches (Fig. A) root them- selves in the soil during August and September, forming young plants. These, planted, produce a vigorous bush the first year that b irs the second season, and then dies down to the perennial root, as is the case with all rasp- berries. Usually, the tips of the young canes will take root, if left to themselves, unless whipped about by the wind. If new plants in abundance are desired, it is best to assist nature, however, by placing a little earth on the tip just after it begins to enlarge slightly, thus showing it is ready to take root. This labor is quickly performed by throwing a handful or two of earth on the tips with a trowel. The tips do not all mature for propa- gation at one time ; therefore, it is well to go over the plantation every two weeks after the middle of August, and cover lightly with earth only such 1 86 Rubus Occidentalis. as are enlarged. If cov- ered before this sign of readiness appears, the tip merely decays. If a va- riety is very scarce, we may cover not only the tips, but also much of the cane, lightly — an inch or two — with earth, and each bud will eventually make a plant. This should not be done, how- ever, until the wood is well ripened, /say about the first of October. Throw a few leaves over such layered canes in November, and divide the buds and roots into separate plants early in spring. They will prob- Native Raspberries of America. (Rubus Occidentalis.) ably be so small as to need a year in the nursery row. Sometimes, after the first tip is rooted, buds a little above it will push into shoots 1 88 Success with Small Fruits. which also will root themselves with slight assistance, as in Fig. B, and thus the number of new plants is greatly increased. Spring is by far the best time, at the North, for planting these rooted tips ; but it should be done as early as possible, before the bud (C) has started into its brittle, succulent growth. At the South, November is probably the best season for planting. It is a species that adapts itself to most soils, even the lightest, and endures much neglect. At the same time, it responds generously to good culture and rigorous pruning, and, if moisture is abundant, the yield is simply enormous. It not only thrives far to the north, but can also be grown farther south than any other class of raspberries. In planting, spread out the roots and let them go down their full length, but do not put over an inch or two of soil on the bud from which the new canes are to spring. Press the earth firmly around this bud, but not on it. Let the rows be six feet apart, and the plants three feet from each other in the row ; at this distance, 2,400 will be required for an acre. Summer pinching back will transform these sprawling, drooping canes into compact, stocky bushes, or ornamental shrubs that in sheltered locations will be self-supporting. Clean culture, and, as the plantation grows older, higher stimulation, greatly enhance success. After the plants begin to show signs of age and feebleness, it is best to set out young plants on new ground. The varieties of this species are almost innumerable, since seedlings come up by the million every year; but the differences between the majority of them are usually very slight. There are four kinds, however, that have won honorable distinction and just popularity. The earliest of these is Davidson's Thornless, said to have originated in the garden of Mrs. Mercy Davidson, Towanda, Erie Co., N. Y. It is nothing like so vigorous a grower as the other three varieties ; but the sweetness of the fruit and the freedom from thorns make it desirable for the home garden. Unless high culture or moist soil is given, I do not recommend it for market. Next in order of ripening is the Doolittle, or American Improved, found growing wild, about thirty-five years since, by Leander Joslyn, of Phelps, Ontario Co., N. Y., and introduced by Mr. H. H. Doolittle. This, hitherto, has been the most popular of all the species, and thousands of bushels are annually raised for market. The plant is exceedingly vigorous, producing strong, branching canes that literally cover them- selves with fruit. I have seen long rows fairly black with caps. Perhaps it should be stated that the thorns are vigorous, also. Black- Cap and Purple Cane Raspberries. 189 Latest in ripening is the Mammoth Cluster, or McCormick, which, thus far, has been my favorite. It is even more vigorous than the preceding, but not so briery or branching. The fruit is produced usually in a thick cluster or bunch at the end of the branch, and they ripen more together than the other kinds. The caps, too, are much larger, more juicy and fine-flavored. One is less conscious of the seeds. Between the thumb and finger you can often gather a handful from a single spray, it is so prodigiously productive. Thus far, it has been unsurpassed, either for home use or market ; but now it is encountering a rival in the Gregg, a new variety, that is attracting much attention. Its history, as far as I have been able to learn it, is as follows : In the latter part of June, 1866, this black raspberry was found growing wild in a ravine on the Gregg farm, which is located in Ohio Co., Indiana. The original bush "was bending under the weight of colossal- sized clusters. It was then a single clump, surrounded by a few young plants growing from its tips. Before introducing it to the public, we gave it a most thorough and complete trial. We have put it on the tables of some of the most prominent horticultural societies, and by each it has been voted the highest rank in their fruit lists. At the Centennial Exposition, at Philadelphia, in competition with all the prominent varieties in the world, it was ranked highest by the judges. During eleven years of observation it has survived the coldest winters, and never failed to yield an abundant crop. It is a vigorous, rapid grower, producing strong, well-matured canes by fall. The fruit is beautiful in appearance, delicious, possessing excellent shipping and keeping qualities." The above is a mild and condensed statement of its claims, as set forth by Messrs. R. & P. Gregg, proprietors of the Gregg farm, and I believe these gentlemen have given a correct account of their experience. As the result of much inquiry, it would appear that this variety is also doing well throughout the country at large. Mr. N. Ohmer, who has been most prominent in introducing the Gregg, gives the following account of his first acquaintance with it : " At a meeting of the Indiana State Horticultural Society, held at Indianapolis, a gentleman asked for the privilege of making some remarks about a new black raspberry that he was cultivating. Being pretty long-winded, as most lawyers are, he spoke so long, and said so much in favor of his berry, that no one believed him, and were glad when he got through. The summer following, I chanced to call on the Secretary of the Indiana State Board of Agriculture, in the Capitol building, and was surprised to see on his table about half a peck of berries and an armful of canes 190 Success with Small Fruits. loaded with the largest, handsomest and best black raspberries I had ever seen. Mr. Herron, the Secretary, informed me that they were grown by Messrs. R. & P. Gregg. I obtained two hundred plants, a few of which bore fruit so fine, the following season, that all who saw it wanted plants." It was learned that Mr. Gregg was the lawyer who was thought " long- winded," and many who then yawned have since thought, no doubt, that they might have listened with much profit, for the demand for the plants has become greater than the supply. Only time can show whether the Gregg is to supersede the Mammoth Cluster. I observe that veteran fruit growers are very conservative, and by no means hasty to give a new-comer the place that a fine old variety has won by years of excel- lence in nearly all diversities of soil and climate. The Gregg certainly promises remarkably well, and Mr. Thomas Meehan, editor of the Gardener's Monthly, who is well known to be exceedingly careful and conscientious in indorsing new fruits, writes : " We believe this variety is generally larger than any other of its kind yet known." There are many other candidates for favor, but thus far they are untried, or have not proved themselves equal to the kinds I have named. Quite a distinct branch of R. Occidentalis is the Purple Cane family, — so named, I think, from the purple cane raspberry that was so well known in old gardens a few years ago, but since it has been superseded by better kinds is now fast passing out of cultivation. It almost took care of itself in our home garden for forty years or more, and its soft, small berries would melt in one's mouth. Its canes were smooth and its fruit of a dusky-red color. In other respects, it resembles the black-cap tribe. The Catawissa, found growing in a Pennsylvania grave-yard, is another berry of this class, which produces a second crop in autumn. It is tender in the Northern States, and has never become popular. The Philadelphia is the best known of the class, and at one time was immensely popular. Its canes are smooth, stout, erect in growth, and enormously productive of medium-sized, round, dusky-re^ berries of very poor flavor. It throve so well on the light soils about Philadel- phia, that it was heralded to the skies, and the plants sold at one time as high as $40 per 100, but the inferior flavor and unattractive appear- ance of the fruit caused it to decline steadily in favor, and now it has but few friends. Unlike others of its class, it does not root from the tips, but propagates itself by suckers, producing them sparingly, however. When it was in such great demand, the nurserymen increased it by root cuttings, forced under glass. CHAPTER XXIII. THE RASPBERRIES OF THE FUTURE. WE now come to a class that are destined, I think, to be the raspberries of the future, or, at least, a type of them. I refer to seedlings of the three original species that have been described. As a rule (having exceptions of course), these native seedling varieties are compara- tively hardy, and adapted to the climate of America. This adaptation applies to the South, in the proportion that they possess the qualities of the Rubus Strigosus or Occidentalis. To the degree that the foreign ele- ment of R. Idceus exists, they will, with a few exceptions, require winter protection, and will be unable to thrive in light soils and under hot suns. Forgetfulness of this principle is often the cause of much misapprehension and undiscriminating censure. I have known certain New Jersey fruit growers to condemn a variety unsparingly. Would it not be more sensible to say it belongs to the R. Idceus class, and, therefore, is not adapted to our climate and light soil, but in higher latitudes and on heavy land it may prove one of the best ? It should here be premised that these seedlings originated in this country. Perhaps they are the product solely of our native species, or they may result from crossing varieties of R. Idceus, in which case they will exhibit the characteristics of the foreign species ; or, finally, from the foreign and our native species may be produced a hybrid that will combine traits of each line of its lineage. A conspicuous example of the second statement may be seen in Brinkle's Orange, originated by Dr. Brinkle 192 Success with Small Fruits. many years ago. It is essentially an Antwerp in character, and yet it is more vigorous, and adapted to a wider range of country than the Antwerp. The berry is of a beautiful buff color, and its delicious flavor is the accepted standard of excellence. At the same time, it is well known that it will not thrive under hot suns or upon light land. It can be raised south of New York only in cool, moist soils, and in half-shady locations ; but at the north, where the conditions of growth are favorable, it produces strong branching canes, covered with white spines, and is exceedingly productive of large, light-colored berries that melt on the tongue. There is the same difference between it and the Brandywine that exists between Stowell's Evergreen and flint field corn. It invariably requires winter protection. The Pride of the Hudson possesses the same general character as the Orange, and approaches it very nearly in excellence. It certainly is the largest, most beautiful red raspberry now before the public ; but in its later development it has shown such sensitiveness to both heat and cold that I cannot recommend it for general cultivation. Give it a moist soil and a half-shady location, such as may be found on the northern side of a fence or hedge, and it will become the pride of any northern garden ; but in the South, and on light soils, it can scarcely live. It should have winter protection. In contrast with these native berries of foreign parentage, we have the Herstine; Mr. B. K. Bliss, the well-known seedsman of New York city, kindly furnishes me the following facts of its history : " About ten years since I was invited, with several gentlemen (mostly horticulturists), to visit the late Mr. Herstine, .at Philadelphia. We were to examine a lot of seedling raspberries, and select names for those that we thought worthy of general cultivation. We found quite a company there from the vicinity of Philadelphia and from Washington, while New York was represented by such eminent authorities as Dr. Thurber and A. S. Fuller. The raspberry bushes were completely loaded with large, fine fruit, — the finest I ever saw. Each variety was carefully examined, and the guests voted as to which, in his opinion, was the best. The Herstine stood r'irst, and the Saunders second. Mr. Herstine explained that they were raised from the Allen raspberry, which had been planted in alternate rows with the Philadelphia." This parentage would make it a hybrid of the R. Strigosus and the purple cane branch of the R. Occidentalis species ; but the plant and fruit indicate the presence, also, of the R. Idczus element. After several years' experience on my own place, I regard it as the best early raspberry in existence. The berry is large, obtusely conical, bright red, and delicious in flavor. It is scarcely firm enough for market where it The Raspberries of the Future. \ 9 3 must be sent any great distance, but if picked promptly after it reddens, and packed in a cool, airy place, like that under my northern piazza, suggested in the engraving, it carries well and brings good prices. The canes are strong, red, stocky and covered with spines. They are but half-hardy, and I think it is best to cover them before the first of December, in our latitude. The canes of the Saunders, also sent out by Mr. Herstine, are much The Herstine Raspberry. A Cool Packing-Place. darker in color, and not so vigorous, but sufficiently so. The berries are large, ripen later, are more globular, and are of the same excellent quality. It deserves greater popularity than it has received. It is, also, only half- hardy. 25 194 Success with Small Fruits. In the Clarke, we undoubtedly have a variety containing considerable of the R. Idczus element. The berries are often very large, bright crimson, conical, with large, hairy grains. Occasionally, the fruit on my vines was very imperfect, and crumbled badly in picking. I found that by cutting the canes rigorously back — even one-half — I obtained much larger and more perfect berries, and in increased quantities. The canes are very strong, upright growers, ending usually in a thick tuft of foliage, rather than in long, drooping tips. It was originated by Mr. E. E. Clarke, of New Haven, Conn., and is but half-hardy. In the New Rochelle, we have a hybrid of the black-cap and red raspberry, the R. Occidentalis element predominating, and mani- festing itself in the stocky and branching character of the canes, and in the fact that they propagate themselves by tips, and not suckers. The New Rochelle, originated by Mr. E. W. Carpenter, of Rye, N. Y., is perhaps the best of this class. It is very vigorous, hardy and enormously productive, and the fruit is of good size. I do not like its sharp acid, how- ever, and its dun or dusky-brown color will probably prevent it from becoming a favorite in market, since bright-hued berries are justly much preferred. But Mr. Carpenter has sent out another seedling which, I think, is destined to have a brilliant future — the Caroline. It is thought to be a cross between the Catawissa and Brinkle's Orange. The canes are per- fectly hardy, very strong, vigorous, branching, light-red, with a lighter bloom upon them here and there. It suckers freely, and also propagates itself sparingly from the tips. The fruit is exceedingly abundant and is a round cap of a beautiful buff color, almost equaling Brinkle's Orange in flavor. I think it will grow anywhere, and thus will find a place in innumerable gardens where the Orange does not thrive. At the same time, it is good enough for any garden. The Ganargua was said to be a hybrid, but Mr. J. J. Thomas writes to me : " I have never been able to discover proof that it is one. I think it all R. Occidentalis — a variety." The Reliance, a seedling of the Philadelphia, but far superior to it, is doing remarkably well on my place, and I hear favorable accounts from other localities. There are many others that are either old and passing into obscurity or else so new and dubious in character that limited space forbids their mention. We will close this sketch of varieties with the Cuthbert, which that experienced and careful horticulturist, Dr. Hexamer, calls the "best raspberry now in existence." The Raspberries of the Future. 195 This is a chance seedling, which the late Thomas Outhbert found in his garden, at Riverdale, N. Y. His son has kindly furnished the fol- lowing facts : " The raspberry in question was discovered by my father about eleven years ago in the garden of our country seat at Riverdale- on- the- Hudson. It is probably a seedling of the Hudson River Antwerp, as it was found growing near the edge of a patch of that variety, but its great vigor of growth and the size and quality of the fruit marked it at once as a new and distinct kind. Its canes were carefully separated from the others and a small plantation made of them. The next year, and from time to time since, plants were given to our friends in various parts of the State for trial. Without exception, their reports have been favorable, particular mention having been made of their unusual vigor of growth, their hardiness, and the firmness and good keeping qualities of the fruit. The first year or so we gave the canes winter protection, but finding that it was unnecessary, we have discontinued it, and I have never heard of the canes being winter-killed." From other sources I learn that Mr. Cuthbert made an arrange- ment with a nurseryman by the name of Thompson, to propagate and send out the variety. This gentleman dying soon after, the stock came into the possession of Mr. H. J. Corson, of Staten Island, N. Y., and by him and Mr. I. J. Simonson, a florist, the plants have been sent out to different parts of the country. This dissemination was very limited, and was characterized by an almost utter absence of heralding and extravagant praise. The berry has literally made its way on its own merits. Dr. Hexamer remarked to me that he had had it for years, and had wondered why its merits were so overlooked. My attention was called to it in the summer of 1878, and I took pains to see it in several localities. The large size of the berries, their firmness and fine flavor, con- vinced me that it was very valuable, and the fact that I found it flourish- ing luxuriantly on New Jersey sand, and maintaining a perfectly healthful foliage under an August sun, led me to believe that we had at last found a first-class variety that would thrive on light soils and under hot suns. The late W. C. Bryant, the poet, himself well versed in horticulture, closed a letter to me with the following words: " It has always seemed to me a scandal to our horticulture that in a region where the raspberry grows wild, we should not have a sort that would resist both the winter cold and summer heat, and produce abundantly." After another year of observation and of much correspondence, extend- ing even to California, I am convinced that the Cuthbert does " resist both 196 Success with Small Fruits. the winter cold and summer heat, and produce abundantly," far better than any other raspberry that equals it in size and flavor. The artist has given us an accurate portrait of the fruit, which, although so large, has the pecul- iar indentation of the grains and other characteristics of the R. Strigosus, showing that its constitution is derived mainly from our sturdy native species. The canes are strong, upright, branching, if space permits, reddish-brown, spines abundant, but not very long and harsh. It is a rampant grower on good soil, but the foliage, so far from being rank and large, is delicate, and the under side of the leaves has a light, silvery hue. After once getting hold of the soil, it suckers immoderately, but is no worse in this respect than other vigorous varieties; and this tendency rapidly declines after the second year. Is it perfectly hardy ? No ; and I do not know of a single good raspberry that is; except, perhaps, the Turner, which, however, is inferior to the Cuthbert. I have seen the latter badly winter-killed, but it had stood eight years on the same ground without injury before. Then, because of a rank growth late in the season, that especial patch was hit hard, while other fields, but a few miles away, were unharmed. If planted on well-drained soil, where the wood could ripen well, I think it would be injured very rarely, if ever ; but I have no faith in talk about "perfectly hardy raspberries." Those who observe closely will often find our hardy native species killed to the ground, and I think many varieties suffer more from the mild, variable winters of the Middle States than from the steady cold and snowy winters of the North. Moreover, any variety that has not the power of maintaining a healthy foliage through the hot season will usually be too feeble to resist the winter following. The question of hardiness can often be settled better in August than in January. One of the most hopeful features of the Cuthbert, therefore, is its tough, sun-enduring foliage, which enables the wood to ripen perfectly. It has never received winter protection thus far, either in this region or in Michi- gan, where it is largely raised, but it may be found necessary to shield it somewhat in some localities. It is both absurd and dishonest to claim per- fection for a fruit, and the Cuthbert, especially as it grows o1- ier and loses something of its pristine vigor, will, probably, like all other varieties, develop faults and weaknesses. We cannot too much deprecate the arro- gant spirit often manifested in introducing new fruits. Interested parties insist on boundless praise, and, if their advice were followed, the fine old standards would be plowed out to make room for a new-comer that often proves, on trial, little better than a weed. The Cuthbert is not exactly a novelty. Through the gifts of the originator, and sales running through several years, it has become widely scattered, and has proved a success in The Raspberries of the Future. 197 Cuthbert Raspberry. Nooning under the Trees. 198 Success with Small Fruits. every instance, as far as I can learn. I show my faith in it by my works, for I am setting it out more largely than all other kinds together, even going so far as to rent land for the purpose. I am satisfied, from frequent inquiries in Washington Market, that it will take the lead of all others, and it is so firm that it can be shipped by rail, like a Wilson strawberry. In Delaware and Southern New Jersey, a variety named " Queen of the Market " is being largely set out. I have this variety in my specimen- bed, side by side with plants that came from Thomas Cuthbert's garden, and am almost satisfied that they are identical, and that Queen of the Market is but a synonym of the Cuthbert. I have placed the canes and spines of each under a powerful microscope and can detect no differences, and the fruit also appeared so much alike that I could not see wherein it varied. Plants of this variety were sent to Delaware some years since, as they were to Michigan and California, and, wherever tested, they seem to win strong and immediate favor. Its chief fault in this locality is its lateness. CHAPTER XXIV. BLACKBERRIES — VARIETIES, CULTIVATION, ETC. r I AHE small-fruit branch of the rose family is assuredly entitled to -L respect when it is remembered that the blackberry is the blackest sheep in it. Unlike the raspberry, the drupes cling to the receptacle, which falls off with them when mature, and forms the hard, disagreeable core when the berry is black, but often only half ripe. The bush is, in truth, what the ancients called it, — a bramble, and one of our Highland wild- cats could scarcely scratch more viciously than it, if treated too familiarly ; but, with judicious respect and good management, it will yield berries as large and beautiful as those on the Kittatinny spray portrayed, the original of which ripened in my garden last summer. It would seem that Nature had given her mind more to blackberries than to strawberries, for, instead of merely five, she has scattered about 150 species up and down the globe. To describe all these would be a thorny experience indeed, robbing the reader of his patience as com- pletely as he would be bereft of his clothing, should he literally attempt to go through them all. Therefore, I shall give Professor Gray's descrip- tion of the two species which have furnished our few really good varieties, and dismiss with mere mention a few other species. " Rubus Villosus, High Blackberry. Everywhere along thickets, fence-rows, etc., and several varieties cultivated; stems one to six feet high, furrowed; prickles strong and hooked ; leaflets three to five, ovate or lance-ovate, pointed, their lower 2OO Success with Small Fruits. surface and stalks hairy and glandular, the middle one long-stalked and sometimes heart-shaped ; flowers racemed, rather large, with short bracts ; fruit oblong or cylindrical. " R. Canade'nsis, Low Blackberry or Dewberry. Rocky and sandy soil ; long trailing, slightly prickly, smooth or smoothish, and with three to seven smaller leaflets than in the foregoing, the racemes of flowers with more leaf-like bracts, the fruit of fewer grains and ripening earlier." The R. Cuneifolius, or Sand Blackberry, is common in the sandy ground and barrens from New Jersey southward ; the R. Trivialis, Southern Low Blackberry, is found in light soils from Virginia southward ; the R. Hispidus is a Running Swamp Blackberry whose long, slender stems creep through low, damp woods and marshes ; the R. Spectabilis produces purple solitary flowers, and grows on the banks of the Columbia River in the far North-West. Whatever improvements may originate from these species in the future, they have not as yet, to my knowledge, given us any fine cultivated variety. R. Fruticosus is the best-known European species, but neither has it, as far as I can discover, been the source of any varieties worthy of favor. It is said to have a peculiar flavor, that produces satiety at once. The blackberry, therefore, is exceptional, in that we have no fine foreign varieties, and Mr. Fuller writes that he cannot find " any practical informa- tion in regard to their culture in any European work on gardening." The " bramble " is quite fully treated in Mr. R. Thompson's valuable English work, but I find little to interest the American reader. He suggests that the several native species that he describes are capable of great improvement, but I cannot learn that such effort has ever been made successfully. I do not know of any reason why our fine varieties will not thrive abroad, under conditions that accord with their nature. In America there are innumerable varieties, since Nature produces wild seedlings on every hill-side, and not a few seeds have been planted by horti- culturists, in the hope of originating a prize berry. Nature appears to have had the better fortune, thus far, for our best variei; s are chance seedlings, found growing wild. It is not so many years since the blackberry was regarded as merely a bramble in this country, as it now is abroad, and people were content with such fruit as the woods and fields furnished. Even still, in some localities, this supply is so abundant as to make the culture of the blackberry unprofitable. But, a number of years since, Mr. Lewis A. Seacor led to better things, by observing on the road-side, in the town of New Rochelle, Westchester county, New York, a bush flourishing where Nature had Blackberries — Varieties, Cultivation, Etc. 2OI planted it. This variety took kindly to civilization, and has done more to introduce this fruit to the garden than all other kinds together. Mr. Donald G. Mitchell, in his breezy out-of-door book, "My Farm at Edgewood," gives its characteristics so admirably that I am tempted to quote him : Gathering Wild Blackberries. " The New Rochelle or Lawton Blackberry has been despitefully spoken of by '• many ; first, because the market fruit is generally bad, being plucked before it is i fully ripened ; and next, because, in rich, clayey grounds, the briars, unless severely cut back, grow into a tangled, unapproachable forest, with all the juices exhausted i in wood. But upon a soil moderately rich, a little gravelly and warm, protected from ; winds, served with occasional top-dressings and good hoeings, the Lawton bears ; magnificent burdens. Even then, if you wish to enjoy the richness of the fruit, you I must not be hasty to pluck it. When the children say, with a shout, ' The black- \ berries are ripe ! ' I know they are black only, and I can wait. When the children report, ' The birds are eating the berries ! ' I know I can wait. But when they say, * The bees are on the berries ! ' I know they are at their ripest. Then, with baskets, we sally out ; I taking the middle rank, and the children the outer spray of boughs. Even now we gather those only which drop at the touch; these, in a brimming saucer, with golden Alderney cream and a soupcon of powdered sugar, are Olympian nectar ; they melt before the tongue can measure their full roundness, and seem to be mere bloated bubbles of forest honey." Notwithstanding this eloquent plea and truthful statement, the Lawton is decidedly on the wane. It is so liable to be winter-killed, even with best of care, and its fruit is so unpalatable, in its half-ripe condition, that it has 26 202 Success with Small Fruits. given place to a more successful rival — the Kittatinny — discovered in Warren county, N. J., growing in a forest, near the mountains, whose Indian name has become a household word from association with this most delicious fruit. Mr. Wolverton, in finding it, has done more for the world than if he had opened a gold mine. Under good culture, the fruit is very large, as shown in the engraving ; sweet, rich and melting, when fully ripe, but rather sour and hard when immature. It reaches its best condition if allowed to ripen fully on the /ines; but the majority of pickers use their hands only, and no more think of making nice discriminations than of questioning nature according to the Baconian method. They gather all that are black, or nearly so ; but if this half- ripe fruit is allowed to stand in some cool, dry place for about twelve hours, Kittatinny berries may be had possessing nearly all their luscious qualities. The plant is an upright and very vigorous grower, exceedingly productive if soil and culture are suitable. Its leaves are long-pointed, " finely and Kittatinny Blackberry. Blackberries — Varieties, Cultivation, Etc. 203 unevenly serrate." The season of fruiting is medium, continuing from four to six weeks, if moisture is maintained. Both of these varieties are derived from the Rubus Villosus species. In contrast, is the next best-known sort — Wilson's Early — having many of the characteristics of the Dewberry, or running blackberry, and, there- fore, representing the second species described R. Canadensis. Whether it is merely a sport from this species, or a hybrid between it and the first- named or high blackberry, cannot be accurately known, I imagine ; for, it also was found growing wild by Mr. John Wilson, of Burlington, N. J. Under high culture, and with increasing age, the plants become quite erect and stocky growers, but the ends of the cane are drooping. Frequently, they trail along the ground, and root at the tips, like the common Dewberry, and they rarely grow so stocky but that they can be bent over covered with earth or litter, as is the case with the tender raspberries. It is well that this is possible, for it has so little power of resisting frost that a winter- of ordinary severity kills the canes in the latitude of New York. I have always covered mine, and thus secured, at slight expense, a sure and abundant crop. The fruit is earlier than the Kittatinny, and tends to ripen altogether in about ten days. These advantages, with its large size and firmness, make it a valuable market berry in New Jersey, where hundreds of acres of it have been planted, and where it is still very popular. Throughout the North and West, it has been found too tender for cultiva- tion, unless protected. In flavor, it is inferior to the Kittatinny or Snyder. For many years, the great desideratum has been a perfectly hardy blackberry, and this want has at last been met in part by the Snyder, a Western variety that seems able to endure without the slightest injury the extremes of temperature common in the North-western States. From Nebraska eastward I have followed its history, and have never heard of its being injured by frost. It originated on, or in the vicinity of, Mr. Snyder's farm, near La Porte, Ind., about 1851, and is an upright, exceedingly vigorous and stocky grower, a true child of the R. Villosus. The engraving well suggests its wonderful productiveness, and the single berry given outlines the average size of the fruit under good culture. Its one fault is thus seen at a glance — it is not quite large enough to compete with those already described. On moist land, with judicious pruning, it could be made to approach them very nearly, however, while its earliness, hardiness, fine flavor and ability to grow and yield abundantly almost ; anywhere, will lead to an increasing popularity. For home use, size is not so important as flavor and certainty of a crop. It is also more nearly ripe when first black than any other kind that I have seen ; its 2O4 Success with Small Fruits. thorns are straight, and therefore less vicious. I find that it is growing steadily in favor; and where the Kittatinny is winter-killed, this hardv, new variety leaves little cause for repining. There are several kinds that are passing out of cultivation, and not a few new candidates for favor, but the claims of superiority are as yet too doubtful to be recognized. Mr. James Wilson, of West Point, N. Y., found some mag- nificent wild berries growing on Crow Nest Mountain. The bush that bore them is now in my garden, and if it should produce fruit having a flavor equal to Rodman Drake's poem, Mr. Wilson has, then, Snyder Blackberry. Blackberries — Varieties, Cultivation, Etc. 205 found something more real than a " Culprit Fay." Occasionally, a thornless blackberry is heralded, and not a few have reason to recall the " Hoosac," which was generally found, I think, about as free from fruit as thorns. We have, also, the horticultural paradox of white black- berries, in the " Crystal," introduced by Mr. John B. Orange, of Albion, Illinois, and some others. They have little value, save as curiosities. PROPAGATION, CULTURE, ETC. In most instances, I think more difficulty would be found in making a blackberry die than live. A plant set out in fall or early spring will thrive if given the ghost of a chance. Late spring plantings, however, often fail if subjected to heat and drought while in the green, succulent condition of early growth. Like the raspberry, the blackberry should be set, if possible, while in a dormant condition. If planted late, shade should be given and moisture maintained until danger of wilting and shriveling is past. I advise decidedly against late spring plantings on a large scale, but in early spring planting I have rarely lost a plant. Almost all that has been said concerning the planting and propagation of raspberries applies to this fruit. Set the plants two or three inches deeper than they were before. With the exception of the early Wilson, all speedily propagate themselves by suckers, and this variety can be increased readily by root cuttings. Indeed, better plants are usually obtained from all varieties by sowing slips of the root, as has already been explained in the paper on raspberries. The treatment of the blackberry can best be indicated by merely noting wherein its requirements differ from the last-named and kindred fruit. For instance, it does best on light soils and in sunny exposures. The partial shade, and moist, heavy land in which the raspberry luxuriates, would produce a rank growth of canes that winter would generally find unripened, and unable to endure the frost Warm, well-drained, but not dry land, therefore, is the best. On hard, dry ground, the fruit often never matures, but becomes mere collections of seeds. Therefore the need in the preparation of the soil of deep plowing, and the thorough loosening, if possible, of the subsoil with the lifting plow. Any one who has traced blackberry roots in light soils will seek to give them foraging- room. Neither does this fruit require the fertility needed in most instances by the raspberry. It inclines to grow too rankly at best, and demands mellowness rather than richness of soil. 206 Success with Small Fruits. More room should also be given to the blackberry than to the rasp- berry. The rows should be six feet apart in the garden and eight feet in field culture, and the plants set three feet apart in the rows. At this distance, 1,815 are required for an acre, if one plant only is placed in a hill. Since these plants are usually cheap, if one is small or unprovided with good roots, it is well to plant two. If the ground is not very fertile, it is well to give the young plants a good start by scattering a liberal quantity of muck compost down the furrow in which they are planted. This insures the most vigorous growth of young canes in the rows rather than in the intervening spaces. As generally grown, they require support, and may be staked as raspberries. Very often, cheap post-and-wire trellises are employed, and answer excellently. Under this system, they can be grown in a continuous and bushy row, with care against overcrowding. The ideal treatment of the blackberry is management rather than culture. More can be done with the thumb and finger at the right time than with the most savage pruning-shears after a year of neglect. In May and June, the perennial roots send up vigorous shoots that grow with amazing rapidity, until from five to ten feet high. Very often, this summer growth is so brittle and heavy with foliage, that thunder-gusts break them off from the parent stem just beneath the ground, and the bearing cane of the coming year is lost. These and the following con- siderations show the need of summer pruning. Tall, overgrown canes are much more liable to be injured by frost. They need high and expensive supports. Such branchless canes are by no means so productive as those which are made to throw out low and lateral shoots. They can always be made to do this by a timely pinch that takes off the terminal bud of the cane. This stops its upward growth, and the buds beneath it, which otherwise might remain dormant, are immediately forced to become side branches near the ground, where the snow may cover them, and over which, in the garden, straw or other light litter may be thrown, on the approach of winter. It thus is seen that by early summer jihiching the blackberry may be compelled to become as low and bushy a shrub as we desire, and is made stocky and self-supporting at the same time. Usually, it is not well to let the bushes grow over four feet high, and, in regions where they winter-kill badly, I would keep them under three feet, so that the snow might be a protection. It should be remembered that the Kittatinny is so nearly hardy that in almost all instances a very slight covering saves it. The suckers that come up thickly between the rows can be cut away while small with the least possible trouble ; but leave the Propagation, Culture, Etc. 207 patch or field to its own wild impulses for a year or so, and you may find a "slip of wilderness " in the midst of your garden that will require not a little strength and patience to subdue. By far the best weapon for such a battle, and the best implement also for cutting out the old wood, is the powerful and long-handled shears suggested in the engraving of the early Wilson variety. Success with Small Fruits. CHAPTER XXV. CURRANTS — CHOICE OF SOIL, CULTIVATION, PRUNING, ETC. THEY were " curns " in our early boyhood, and " curns " they are still in the rural vernacular of many regions. In old English they were " corrans," because the people associated them with the raisins of the small Zante grape, once imported so exclusively from Corinth as to acquire the name of that city. Under the tribe Grossularice of the Saxifrage family we find the Ribes, containing many species of currants and gooseberries ; but, in accordance with the scope of this book, we shall quote from Professor Gray (whose arrangement we follow) only those that furnish the currants of cultivation. " Ribes Rubrum, red currant, cultivated from Europe, also wild on our northern border, with straggling or reclining stems, somewhat heart- shaped, moderately three to five lobed leaves, the lobes roundish and drooping racemes from lateral buds distinct from the leaf buds ; edible berries red, or a white variety." This is the parent of our cultivated red and white varieties. Currants are comparatively new-comers in the garden. When the Greek and Roman writers were carefully noting and naming the fruits of their time, the Ribes tribe was as wild as any of the hordes of the far north, in whose dim, cold, damp woods and bogs it then flourished ; but, like other northern tribes, it is making great improvement under the genial influences of civili- zation and culture. Until within a century or two, gardeners who cultivated currants at all were content with wild specimens from the woods. The exceedingly small, 27 2io Success with Small Fruits. acid fruit of these wildings was not calculated to inspire enthusiasm ; but a people possessing the surer qualities of patience and perseverance deter- mined to develop them, and, as a result, we have the old Red and White Dutch varieties, as yet unsurpassed for the table. In the Victoria, Cherry, and White Grape, we have decided advances in size, but not in flavor. CHOICE AND PREPARATION OF SOIL. The secret of success in the culture of currants is suggested by the fact that nature has planted nearly every species of the Ribes in cold, damp, northern exposures. Throughout the woods and bogs of the Northern Hemisphere is found the scraggy, untamed, hardy stock from which has been developed the superb White Grape, whose translucent beauty is scarcely reproduced even by the fine engraving. As with people, so with plants; development does not eradicate constitutional traits and tendencies. Beneath all is the craving for the primeval conditions of life, and the best success with the currant and gooseberry will assuredly be obtained by those who can give them a reasonable approach to the soil, climate, and culture suggested by their damp, cold, native haunts. As with the strawberry, then, the first requisite is, not wetness, but abundant and continuous moist- ure. Soils naturally deficient in this, and which cannot be made drought- resisting by deep plowing and cultivation, are not adapted to the currant. Because this fruit is found wild in bogs, it does not follow that it can be grown successfully in undrained swamps. It will do better in such places than on dry, gravelly knolls, or on thin, light soils ; but our fine, civilized varieties need civilized conditions. The well-drained swamp may become the very best of currant fields ; and damp, heavy land, that is capable of deep, thorough cultivation, should be selected if possible. When such is not to be had, then, by deep plowing, subsoiling, by abundant mulch around the plants throughout the summer, and by occasional watering in the gar- den, counteracting the effects of lightness and dryness of soil, skill can go far in making good nature's deficiencies. Next to depth of soil and moisture, the currant requires fertility. It is justly called one of the " gross feeders," and is not particular as to the quality of its food, so that it is abundant. I would still suggest, however, that it be fed according to its nature with heavy composts, in which muck, leaf-mold, and the cleanings of the cow-stable are largely present. Wood ashes and bone meal are also most excellent. If stable or other light manures must be used, I would suggest that they be scattered liberally on Choice and Preparation of Soil. 2 1 1 the surface in the fall or early spring, and gradually worked in by cultiva- tion. Thus used, their light heating qualities will do no harm, and they will keep the surface mellow and, therefore, moist. The shadowy, Northern haunts of the wild currant also suggest that it will falter and fail under the Southern sun ; and this is true. As we pass down through the Middle States, we find it difficult to make thrive even the hardy White and Red Dutch varieties, and a point is at last reached when the bushes lose their leaves in the hot season, and die. From the latitude of New York south, therefore, increasing effort should be made to supply the currants' constitutional need, by giving partial shade among pear or widely set apple trees, or, better still, by planting on the northern side of fences, buildings, etc. By giving a cool, half-shady exposure in moist land, the culture of the currant can be extended far to the south, especially in the high mountain regions. Even well to the north it is unprofitable when grown on light, thin, poor land, unless given liberal, skillful culture. PLANTING, CULTIVATION AND PRUNING. I regard autumn as the best season for planting currants, but have succeeded nearly as well in early spring. If kept moist, there is little danger of the plants dying at any time, but those set in the fall or early spring make, the first year, a much larger growth than those planted when the buds have developed into leaves. Since they start so early, they should be set in the spring as soon as the ground is dry enough to work, and in the autumn, any time after the leaves fall or the wood is ripe. The plants of commerce are one, two and three years old, though not very many of the last are sold. I would as soon have one-year plants, if well rooted, as any, since they are cheaper and more certain to make strong, vigorous bushes, if given generous treatment in the open field, than if left crowded too long in nursery rows. For the garden, where fruit is desired as soon as possible, two and three year old plants are preferable. After planting, cut the young bushes back one-half or two-thirds, so as to insure new and vigorous growth. In field culture, I recommend that the rows be five feet apart, and the plants four feet from each other, in the row. In this case, 2,178 plants are required for an acre. If it is designed to cultivate them both ways, let the plants be set at right angles five feet apart, an acre now requiring 1,742 plants. Sink them two or three inches deeper than they stood in the '212 Success with Small Fruits. nursery rows, and although in preparation the ground was well enriched, a shovel of compost around the young plant gives it a fine send-off, and hastens the development of a profitable bush. In the field and for market, In the Currant Field. I would urge that currants be grown invariably in bush, rather than in tree form. English writers, and some here who follow them, recommend the latter method ; but it is not adapted to our climate, and to such limited attention as we can afford to give. The borers, moreover, having but a single stem to work upon, would soon cause many vacancies in the rows. Currants are grown for market with large and increasing profits — indeed, there is scarcely a fruit that now pays better. The graphic pencil of Miss Curtiss has well suggested the July scenes on Mr. Cornell's place, near Newburgh, — one of the largest currant farms in the country. Planting, Cultivation and Pruning. 213 Mr. John S. Collins, of Moorestown, N. J., by the following ingenious, yet simple, invention, is able to drive through his currant and raspberry fields without injuring the plants. " An ordinary cart is changed by putting in an axle fifteen inches longer than usual, the wheels thus making a track six fecc and eight inches wide. The shafts and body of the cart are put just as close to one wheel as possible, so that the horse and the wheel will pass as near together, and as near in a line, as practicable. The axle of the other wheel being long, and bowing up several inches higher than ordinary in the middle, it passes over a row of bushes with little or no damage. Thus, fertilizers can be carried to all parts of the field." Of course, it would not do to drive through bushes laden with fruit; but after they were picked, such a vehicle could cause but little injury. In the garden and for home use there is the widest latitude. We may content ourselves, as many do, with a few old Red Dutch bushes Weighing Currants. that, for a generation, have struggled with grass and burdocks. We may do a little better, and set out plants in ordinary garden soil, but forget for years to give a particle of food to the starving bushes, remarking 214 Success wit /i Small Fruits. ^ annually, with increasing emphasis, that they must be " running out." Few plants of the garden need high feeding more, and no others are more generally starved. I will guarantee that there are successful farmers who no more think of manuring a currant bush than of feeding crows. This fruit will live, no matter how we abuse it, but there are scarcely any that respond more quickly to generous treatment ; and in the garden where it is not necessary to keep such a single eye to the margin of profit, many beautiful and interesting things can be done with the currant. The majority will be satisfied with large, vigorous bushes, well enriched, mulched and skillfully pruned. If we choose, however, we may train them into pretty little trees, umbrella, globe, or pyramidal in shape, according to our fancy, and, by watchfulness and the use of ashes, keep away the borers. The beautiful cluster of Cherry currants seen in the engraving was taken from a little tree about three feet high, grown in the following simple manner. I found a few vigorous shoots that had made a growth of nearly three feet in a single season. With the exception of the terminal bud and three or four just below it, I disbudded these shoots carefully, imbedded the lower ends six inches in moist soil, as one would an ordinary cutting, and they speedily took root and developed into little trees. Much taller and more ornamental cur- rant and gooseberry trees can be obtained by grafting any variety we wish on the Missouri species (Ribes Aureum). These, as the artist has suggested, can be made pretty and useful ornaments of the lawn, as well as of the garden. Instead, therefore, of weed-choked, sprawling, unsightly objects, currant bushes can be made things of beauty, as well as of sterling worth ; and how very beautiful they are will, perhaps, be realized for the first time by some who study the artist's work. The cultivation of the currant is very simple. As early in the spring as the ground is dry enough, it should be thoroughly stirred by plow or cultivator, and all perennial weeds and grasses just around the bushes taken out with pronged hoes or forks. If P liberal top- dressing of compost or some other fertilizer was not given m the autumn, which is the best time to apply it, let it be spread over the roots (not tip against the stems) before the first spring cultivation. While the bushes are still young, they can be cultivated and kept clean, like any hoed crop ; but after they come into bearing, — say the third summer, — a different course must be adopted. If the ground is kept mellow and bare tinder the bushes, the fruit will be so splashed with earth as to be unsalable, and washed fruit is scarcely fit for the table. We very properly wish it with just the bloom and coloring which nature is a month or more in Planting, Cultivation and Pruning. 21$ elaborating. Muddy or rinsed fruit suggests the sty, not a dining-room. A mulch of leaves, straw, evergreen boughs, — anything that will keep the ground clean, — applied immediately after the early spring culture, is the best and most obvious way of preserving the fruit; and this method also secures all the good results which have been shown to follow mulching. Where it is not convenient to mulch, I would suggest that the ground be left undisturbed after the first thorough culture, until the fruit is gathered. The weeds that grow in the interval may be mowed, and allowed to fall under the bushes. By the end of June, the soil will have become so fixed that, with a partial sod of weeds, the fruit may hang over, or even rest upon it, with- out being splashed by the heavy rains then prevalent. This course is not so neat as clean cultivation or mulching. Few fruit growers, however, can afford to make appearances the first consideration. I have heard of oats being sown among the bushes to keep the fruit clean, but their growth must check the best development of the fruit quite as much as the natural crop of weeds. It would be better to give clean culture, and grow rye, or any early maturing green crop, somewhere else, and when the fruit begins to turn, spread this material under the bushes. On many places, the mowings of weedy, swampy places would be found sufficient for the purpose. After the fruit is gathered, start the cultivator and hoe at once, so as to secure vigorous foliage and healthful growth throughout the entire summer. , Currants and Gooseberries in Tree Form. 216 Success with Small Fruits. Pruning may be done any time after the leaves fall, and success depends upon its judicious and rigorous performance. The English gardeners have recognized this fact, and they have as minute and care- ful a system as we apply to the grape. These formal and rather arbitrary methods can scarcely be followed practically in our hurried American life. It seems to me that I can do no better than to lay down some sound and general principles and leave their working out to the judgment of the grower. In most instances, I imagine our best gar- deners rarely trim two bushes exactly alike, but deal with each according to its vigor and natural tendencies, for a currant bush has not a little individuality. A young bush needs cutting back like a young grape-vine, and for the same reason. A grape-vine left to itself would soon become a mass of tangled wood yielding but little fruit, and that of inferior quality. In like manner nature, uncurbed, gives us a great, straggling bush that is choked and rendered barren by its own luxuriance. Air and light are essential, and the knife must make spaces for them. Cutting back and shortening branches develops fruit buds. Otherwise, we have long, unproductive reaches of wood. This is especially true of the Cherry and other varieties resembling it. The judicious use of the knife, kept up from year to year, will almost double their productiveness. Again, too much very young and too much old wood are causes of unfruitfulness. The skillful culturist seeks to produce and preserve many points of branching and short spurs, for it is here that the little fruit buds cluster thickly. When a branch is becoming black and feeble from age, cut it back to the root, that space may be given for younger growth. From six to twelve bearing stems, from three to five feet high, with their shortened branches and fruit spurs, may be allowed to grow from the roots, according to the vigor of the plant and the space allotted to it. Usually, too many suckers start in the spring. Unless the crop of young wood is valuable for propagation, all except such as are needed to renew the bush should be cut out as early as possible, before they have injured the forming crop. In rLr.gland, great attention is paid to summer pruning, and here much might be accom- plished by it if we had, or would take, the time. " ^ SSITY CHAPTER XXVI. CURRANTS, CONTINUED — PROPAGATION, VARIETIES. PRUNING naturally leads to the subject of propagation, for much of that which is cut away, so far from being useless, is often of great value to the nurseryman ; and there are few who grow this fruit for market who could not turn many an honest penny if they would take the refuse young wood of the previous summer's growth and develop it into salable bushes. In most instances, a market would be found in their own neighborhood. Nothing is easier than success in raising young currant bushes, except failure. If cuttings are treated in accordance with their demand for moisture and coolness, they grow with almost certainty; if subjected to heat and drought, they usually soon become dry sticks. The very best course is to make and plant our cuttings in September or very early in October — just as soon as the leaves fall or will rub off readily. As is true of a root-slip, so also the wood cutting must make a callus at its base before there can be growth. From ^this the roots start out. Therefore, the earlier in the fall that cuttings are made, the more time for the formation of this callus. Often, autumn- planted cuttings are well rooted before winter, and have just that much start over those that must begin life in the spring. Six inches is the average length. See Figures A, B and C. Let the cuttings be sunk in ;deep, rich, moist, but thoroughly well- drained soil, so deeply as to leave but two or three buds above the ground. In the garden, where the design is to raise a few fine bushes for home use merely, let the rows be two 28 217 218 Success with Small Fruits. feet apart and the cuttings six inches apart in the row. In raising them by the thousand for market, we must economize space and labor; and, therefore, one of the best methods, after rendering the ground mellow and smooth, is to stretch a line across the plat or field ; then, beginning on one side of the line, to strike a spade into the soil its full depth, press it forward and draw it out This leaves a slight opening of the width and depth of the spade, and a boy, fol- lowing, inserts in this three cuttings, one in the middle and one at each end. The man then steps back and drives the spade down again about four inches in the rear of the first opening, and, as he presses his spade forward to make a second, he closes up the first opening, pressing — indeed, almost pinching — the earth around the three slips that have just been thrust down, until but one or two buds are above the surface. We thus have a row of cuttings, three abreast, and about three inches apart, across the entire field. A space of three feet is left for cultiva- tion, and then we plant, as before, another triple row. These thick rows should be taken up the following fall, when the largest may be sold, or planted where they are to fruit, and the smaller ones replanted in nursery rows. When land is abundant, the cuttings may be sunk in single rows, with sufficient space between for horse cultivation, and allowed to mature into two-year-old plants without removal. If these are not planted or sold, they should be cut back rigorously before making the third year's growth. In moist land, cuttings can be made to grow even if set out late in the spring, especially if top-dressed and mulched ; but if they are to be started on high, dry land, they should be out sufficiently early in the autumn to become rooted before winter. If our land is of a nature that tends to throw roots out of the ground, — and moist, heavy land has this Currant Cuttings and Callus. (See Figs. A, B, C.) Varieties. 219 tendency, — it may be best to bury the cuttings in bundles, tied up with fine wire, on a dry knoll, below the action of the frost, and set them out early — as early as possible — in the spring. At any season, the rows of cuttings should be well top-dressed with fine manure, and, if planted in autumn, they should be so well covered with straw, leaves, or some litter, as not to suffer or be thrown out in freezing and thawing weather. I manage to get half my cuttings out in the fall, and half in early spring. In the green-house, and even out-of-doors, under very favorable circum- stances, plants may be grown from single buds ; and green wood also propagates readily under glass. A vigorous young plant, with roots attached, may often be obtained by breaking off the suckers that start beneath the surface around the stems; and, by layering or bending bushes over and throwing dirt upon them, new plants are readily made, also ; but, more shapely, ana usually more vigorous, bushes are obtained by simple cuttings, as I have described. When it is designed to grow a cutting in a tree form, all the buds but two or three at the top should be carefully removed. If we wish to try our fortune in raising new varieties, we must sow seeds of the very best specimens we can find, gathered when perfectly ripe. These seeds should never be kept where it is hot or very dry, and should be soaked for a day or two in tepid water before planting. Sow early in spring, quarter of an inch deep, in fine, rich soil, which must continually be kept moist, but never wet. Top- dressings of very fine, light manure would keep the surface from baking, thus giving the seeds a chance to germinate. Tolerate no weeds. Remove the seedlings in the fall to rows three feet apart, and the plants two feet distant in the row. There they may stand until their comparative value can be determined. VARIETIES. Black currants form quite a distinct class in appearance and flavor, and are not as popular with us as in England. They are stronger and coarser- growing plants than the red and white species, and do not require as high culture. They can be grown to advantage in tree form, as they are quite exempt from insect enemies. The tent caterpillar is the only one that I have seen injuring them. They also require much less pruning, since the jbest fruit is borne on the young wood of the previous year's growth. If they are grown as. bushes, they need more room, — six feet apart each way, — and the knife need be used only to secure good form and space for 22O Success with Small Fruits. air and light. Two native species — Ribes Floridum and Ribes Aureum — are cultivated to some extent (for description see " Gray's Botany "). Although these species and their varieties are of little value, Mr. Fuller thinks that they might become the parents of far better kinds than we now have, since they are strong growers, and their fruit is naturally of better flavor than that of the European black currant. Ribes Aureum is largely cultivated as an ornamental shrub, and its spicy-scented, bright yellow flowers of early spring are among my pleasantest memories. As has already been explained, we can make miniature trees of our white and red currants, by grafting them on its strong, erect-growing stems. Ribes Nigrum is the European species, and is found wild throughout the northern part of the Eastern hemisphere. Mr. Fuller writes that the inhabitants of Siberia make a beverage from its dried leaves which is said closely to resemble green tea. Black Naples is the finest variety of this species. Charles Downing says of it : " Its berries often measure nearly three- quarters of an inch in diameter. Its leaves and blossoms appear earlier than those of the common, or English Black, but the fruit is later, and the clusters as well as the berries are larger and more numerous." Lee's Prolific is said by some to be a slight improvement on the above ; by others it is thought to be very similar. Of red currants, the old Red Dutch is the most prominent. It is the currant of memory. From it was made the wine which our mothers and grandmothers felt that they could offer with perfect propriety to the minister. There are rural homes to-day in which the impression still lingers that it is a kind of temperance drink. From it is usually made the currant jelly, without which no lady would think of keeping house in the country. Mrs. Foote's charming drawing suggests one of the gravest questions in the domestic economy, — whether the jelly will "jell." Often, it does not, and cannot be made to. The cause of its lamentable perversity is this : The currants have been left until over-ripe before picking, or they have been picked wet, just after rain. Gather them when dry, and as soon as possible after they have turned red, and i am informed by the highest domestic authority (my wife) that there will be no difficulty. In flavor, the Red Dutch is unequaled by any other red currant. It is also a variety that can scarcely be killed by abuse and neglect, and it responds so generously to high culture and rigorous pruning, that it is an open question whether it cannot be made, after all, the most profitable for market, since it is so much more productive than the larger varieties, and can be made to approach them so nearly in size. Indeed, not a few are annually sold for Cherry currants. Varieties, 221 The White Dutch is similar to the Red in the growth and character of the bush. The clusters, however, are a little short- er, and the fruit a little Red Dutch Currant. 222 Success with Small Fruits. larger and sweeter, and is of a fine yellowish-white color, with a veined, translucent skin. The White Grape is an advance in size upon the last-named, and its marvelous productiveness and beauty are suggested in the engraving. It is not as vigorous as the White Dutch, and is more spreading in its mode White Grape Currants. of growth, requiring careful pruning to make a shapely bush. The fruit, also, is not spread so evenly over the wood, but is produced more in bunches. In flavor, it is one of the very best Dana's Transparent, and other white varieties, do not vary materially from either the White Grape or Dutch. Varieties. 223 The great market currant is the Cherry. In the Canadian Horticult- urist, for September, 1878, I find the following: "The history of this handsome currant is not without interest. Monsieur Adrienne Seneclause, a distinguished horticulturist in France, received it from Italy among a lot of other currants. He noticed the extraordinary size of the fruit, and gave it, in consequence, the name it yet bears. In the year 1843, it was fruited in the nursery of the Museum of Natural History, and figured from these samples in the Annales de Flore et de Pomone for February, 1848. Dr. William W. Valk, of Flushing, Long Island, N. Y., introduced it to the notice of American fruit growers in 1846, having imported some of the plants in the spring of that year." This variety is now very widely disseminated, and its culture is appar- ently becoming increasingly profitable every year. Two essentials are requisite to success with it — high manuring and skillful pruning. It has the tendency to produce long branches, on which there are but few buds. Rigorous cutting back, so as to cause branching joints and fruit spurs, should be practiced annually. The foliage is strong and coarse, and the fruit much more acid than the Dutch family; but, size and beauty carry the market, and the Cherry can be made, by high culture, very large and beautiful, as the engraving suggests. (See page 243.) Versailles, or La Versaillaise, is a figurative bone of contention. The horticultural doctors disagree so decidedly that the rest of us can, without presumption, think for ourselves. Mr. A. S. Fuller has probably given the subject more attention than any one else, and he asserts, without any hesi- tancy, that this so-called variety is identical with the Cherry. Mr. Fuller is certainly entitled to his opinion, for he obtained plants of the Cherry and Versailles from all the leading nurserymen in America, and imported them from the standard nurseries abroad, not only once, but repeatedly, yet could never get two distinct varieties. The writer in the Canadian Horti- culturist also states in regard to the Versailles : " Some pains were taken to obtain this variety on different occasions, and from the most reliable sources, so that there might be no mistake as to the correctness of the name ; but after many years of trial, we are unable to perceive any decided varia- tion, either in the quality of the fruit, the length of the bunch, or the habit of the plant, from the Cherry currant." I must admit that I am inclined to take the same view ; for, during several years, I have looked in vain for two distinct varieties. I have care- fully kept the two kinds separate, but find in each case the same stout, stocky, short-jointed, erect shoots that are often devoid of buds, and 224 Success with Small Fruits. tend to become naked with age, and the same dark green, thick, bluntly and coarsely serrated foliage. Mr. Downing thinks the difference lies in the fact, that while the Versailles strain produces many short bunches like the Cherry, it also frequently bears clusters, of which the engraving is a type, and that such long, tapering clusters are never formed on the Cherry. This is the only difference, I think, if any exists; but in no instance have I been able to find this distinction well defined and sustained by the bear- ing plantations that I have seen. Mr. Downing, however, has had tenfold more experience than I have, and his opinions are entitled to correspond- ing weight. That this class is much inclined to "sport," I think all will admit. One bush in a row may be loaded with fruit year after year, and the next one be comparatively barren. The clusters on one bush may be 'short and characteristic of the Cherry, while a neighboring bush in the same patch may show a tendency to mingle some long clusters with the short ones ; and young bushes grown from the same plant will show these vari- ations. I am satisfied that distinct and much im- proved strains could be developed by propagating from bushes producing the best and most abundant fruit, and that a variety having the characteristics of the Ideal Versailles could be developed. The importance of this careful selection in propagation can scarcely be overestimated, and the fruit grower who followed it up for a few years might almost double the productiveness and quality of many of his varieties. Victoria (known also as May's Victoria, and having a half-dozen other synonyms) is a distinct variety, whose great value consists in its lengthen- ing out the currant season two or three weeks after the above-named kinds have matured. The fruit is also large, — between the Red Dutch and Cherry in size, — exceedingly abundant, and, although rather acid, of good flavor when fully ripe. The clusters are very long, — from five to seven inches, — tapering, and the berries are bright red. If it is grown in some moist, cool, half-shady location, the bunches will The Ideal Versailles Cluster. Varieties. 225 hang on the bushes very late in the season. In many localities, it is found very profitable, since it need not be sold until the others are out of the market. The young branches are rather slender, but the plant itself is vigorous, and can be grown at less expense than the Cherry. There are many other named varieties, but in the majority of instances the distinctions between them ^re slight, and, as they are waning before the finer varieties that I have described, I shall not attempt to lighten the shadows that are gathering around them. The future promises more than the past, and I think that, before many years pass, some fine, new kinds will be introduced. The enemies and diseases of the currant will be treated in a later chapter. 29 CHAPTER XXVII. GOOSEBERRIES. I HAVE treated the currant very fully, not only because it is the more popular fruit in this country, but also because the greater part of my suggestions under that heading applies equally to this branch of the Ribes tribe. Possessing the same general characteristics, it should be treated on the same principles that were seen to be applicable to the currant. It flourishes best in the same cool exposures, and is the better for partial shade. Even in the south of England, the more tender-skinned varieties often scald in the sun. However, I would recommend the shade of a fence or a northern hill-side, rather than overhanging branches of trees. A rich soil, especially one that is deep and moist, but not wet, is equally requisite, and the rigorous annual pruning is even more essential. As the wood becomes old and black, it should be cut out altogether. Fruit buds and spurs are produced on wood two or more years old, and cutting back causes these, but they must not be allowed to become too crowded. To no fruit are air and light more essential. We have in this country two very distinct classes of gooseberries — the first of foreign origin, and the second consisting of our native species. Gray thus describes Ribes Grossularia, garden or English gooseberry: " Cultivated from Europe for the well-known fruit ; thorny and prickly, with small, obtuse, three to five-lobed leaves, green flowers, one to three on short pedicels, bell-shaped calyx, and large berry." This native of northern Europe, and the forests of the British Islands, has been developed into the superb varieties which have been famous so Gooseberries. 227 long in England, but which we are able to grow with very partial success. It remembers its birthplace even more strongly than the currant, and the almost invariable mildew of our gardens is the sign of its homesickness. The cool, moist climate of England just suits it, and it is the pride of the gardens of Lancashire to surpass the world in the development of large specimens. Mr. Downing writes : " We are indebted to the Lancashire weavers, who seem to have taken it up as a hobby, for nearly all the surprisingly large sorts of modern date. Their annual shows exhibit this fruit in its greatest perfection, and a gooseberry book is pub- lished in Manchester every year, giving a list of all the prize sorts, etc." The extraordinary pains taken is suggested by the following quota- tion from the Encyclopaedia of Gardening : " To effect this increased size, every stimulant is applied that their ingenuity can suggest. They not only annually manure the soil richly, but also surround the plants with trenches of manure for the extremities of the roots to strike into, and form round the stem of each plant a basin, to be mulched, or manured, or watered, as may become necessary. When a root has extended too far from the stem, it is uncovered, and all the strongest leaders are shortened back nearly one-half of their length, and covered with fresh, marly loam, well manured. The effect of this pruning is to increase the number of fibres and spongioles, which form rapidly on the shortened roots, and strike out in all directions among the fresh, newly stirred loam, in search of nutriment." This is carrying culture to an extreme rarely, if ever, seen in America. The annual referred to above recorded one hundred and fifty-five goose- berry exhibitions in 1863. The number of varieties is almost endless, and more than seven hundred prize sorts are named in Lindley's " Guide to the Orchard " ; but not one of them, I fear, can be grown in this country, except under favorable conditions and with extra care. Even after supplying such conditions, they will often mildew in spite of our best efforts. Again, in some localities, and for obscure causes, they will thrive and continue for years quite free from this chief enemy of the foreign gooseberry. Repeated applications of the flowers of sulphur over the bushes, from the time the fruit sets until it is ripe, are probably the best preventive. Thorough mulching, rigorous pruning, and high culture are also to be recommended. Those who garden for pleasure would do well to try some of these fine foreigners. The following are some that Mr. Downing and others have recom- mended : 228 Success with Small Fruits. I. Red Varieties : British Crown, Top Sawyer, Roaring Lion, Lanca- shire Lad, Crown Bob. II. White : Cheshire Lass, White Lion, Whitesmith, White Honey. III. Green : Laurel, Heart of Oak, Jolly Angler, Jolly Tar. IV. Yellow : Golden Fleece, Bunker Hill, Conqueror, etc. If but two or three foreign berries are to be chosen, I would recom- mend Crown Bob, Roaring Lion and Whitesmith. I am sorry to say that seedlings of these foreign varieties have the same tendency to mildew shown by their parents. The Late Emer- ald, suggested in the engraving, was originated in the old garden at Newburgh, and is a sad example of this fact. For many years, it thrived in its birthplace without a trace of mildew, but on my own place it has behaved so badly that I do not recommend it. Were it not for this fault, I should grow no other variety. In view of this inveterate evil, mildew, which is so seldom escaped and so difficult to overcome, we must turn to the second great class, our native species, since they are adapted to our climate. Of these there are several species, of which the following are the most prominent : Ribes Speciosum, showy, flower- ing gooseberry of California, culti- vated for ornament, especially in England, and likely to succeed in the southern Middle States. It is trained like a climber; has small, shining leaves, very handsome flowers resembling those of a fuchsia, berry prickly, and few-seeded. R. Rotundi folium, more common in the West, is often downy-leaved ; peduncles slender ; the slender stamens and two-parted style longer than the narrow calyx ; berry smooth. Late Emerald Gooseberry. Gooseberries. 229 Houghton Seedling Gooseberry. Cynosbati is found in the rocky woods of the North, is downy-leaved, with slender peduncle, stamens and undivided style not exceeding the broad calyx ; large berry, usually prickly. R. Lacustre, Lake or Swamp Gooseberry, with the prickly stems of the gooseberry, but with a raceme of flowers like those of a currant ; found in the cold bogs and wet woods of the North ; small, bristly berries, of unpleasant flavor. Last, but by no means the least, is the Ribes Hirtellum, " commonest in our Eastern States, seldom downy, with very short thorns or none, very short peduncles, stamens and two-cleft style scarcely longer than the bell- shaped calyx; and the smooth berry is purple, small and sweet." — (Gray.) This is the parent of the most widely known of our native varieties, the Houghton Seedling, named from its originator, Abel Houghton, of Lynn, Massachusetts. The bush is a vigorous grower, that will thrive, with decent culture, on any moderately good soil, and is very rarely injured by mildew. At the same time, it improves greatly under high culture and pruning. The bush has a slender and even weeping habit of growth, and can be propagated readily by cuttings. From the Houghton have been grown two seedlings that now are justly the most popular. The first and best of these is the Downing, originated by Mr. Charles Downing, of Newburgh. It is an " upright, vigorous-growing plant, very productive. Fruit somewhat larger than the Houghton, roundish- oval, whitish-green, with the rib veins distinct. Skin smooth. Flesh rather soft, juicy." I consider this the best and most profitable variety that can be generally grown in this country. In flavor, it is excellent. I have had good success with it whenever I have given it fair culture. It does 230 Success with Small Fruits. not propagate readily from cuttings, and therefore I increase it usually by layering. The second seedling is Smith's Improved, a comparatively new variety that is winning favor. It more closely resembles the Houghton in its Downing Gooseberry. habit of growth than the Downing, and yet is more vigorous and upright than its parent. The fruit is considerably larger than the Houghton, oval, light green, with a bloom, moderately firm, sweet and good. Mountain Seedling, originating with the Shakers at Lebanon, New York, is the largest of the American varieties, but for some reason it does not gain in popularity. Cluster, or American Red, is an old variety of unknown origin. The ancestral bush may have been found in the woods. The fruit is scarcely as large as that of the Houghton, is darker in color when fully ripe, hangs long on the bush, and is sweet and good. Mr. P. Barry z*\ s that it never mildews. Therefore, it should be made one of the parents of new varieties, for in this direction lies the future of this fruit in America. In support of this opinion, I am led to quote the following letter, recently received : " I write to call your attention to a native variety of gooseberry, of which you make no mention in your Scribner papers, growing in great abundance in the Sierra Nevada, at an elevation of from 2,000 to 3,000 feet, often in the most exposed places, generally on northern slopes. Thinking it may not have come to your Gooseberries. 231 knowledge, I will describe it : The bush is of stiff, erect habit, two to three feet high, a stocky grower and an abundant bearer. The berries vary from one-half to one and one-quarter inches in diameter, are covered with innumerable thorns, scarcely less savage in the green state than those on an ordinary wild bush of this country. When cooked, the prickles soften down to the same consistence as the skin, which is rather thick. When ripe, they are easily peeled, ai;d well repay the trouble, the spines being then much less obdurate than when green. The mature fruit is of a deep, dull, coppery red color, and in flavor is equal, if not superior, to any of the red varieties which I have eaten in England. I have often wondered whether cultivation might not remove the spines from the berries, or, that failing, whether a seedling could not be raised from them which would give us a berry far more reliable than any good gooseberry we now have. The scorching sun of the long, dry season of California seemed to have no effect on the foliage, and in five years' experience I never found a mildewed berry. "The berry is round, like the red English berries, instead of ellipsoid, like their white or golden ones. " There is also another variety, hairy instead of spiny, about the size of your picture of the Downing ; bush not so free a grower, rarely reaching two feet, and the berry, to my taste, much inferior. Tastes, however, differ, and it may be the more promising fruit. " Both varieties are common throughout the eastern end of El Dorado, Placer, and Nevada counties." The first-named, or thorny gooseberry, probably belongs to the Ribes Cynosbati, and the latter to the R. Rotundifolium. The writer is correct in thinking that, if such gooseberries are growing wild, cultivation and selection could secure vast improvements. When we remember that English gardeners started with a native species inferior to ours, we are led to believe that effort and skill like theirs will here be rewarded by kinds as superb, and as perfectly adapted to our climate. CHAPTER XXVIII. DISEASES AND INSECT ENEMIES OF SMALL FRUITS. "VTATURE is very impartial. It is evidently her intention that we 1M shall enjoy all the fruits for which we are willing to pay her price, in work, care or skill ; but she seems equally bent on supplying the hateful white grub with strawberry roots, and currant worms with succu- lent foliage. Indeed, it might even appear that she had a leaning toward her small children, no matter how pestiferous they are. At any rate, under the present order of things, lordly man is often their servant, and they reap the reward of his labors. Did not Nature stumble a little when man fell ? She manages to keep on the right side of the poets and painters ; for it would seem that they see her only when in moods that are smiling, serious or grand. The scientist, too, she beguiles, by showing under the micro- scope how exquisitely she has fashioned some little embodiment of evil that may be the terror of a province, or the scourge of a