Fisherman & farmer. [volume] (Edenton, N.C.) 1887-19??, 1890-09-05

the home market for fruits brought from
a distance. Especially is this true re-
garding small fruits. The grower natu-
rally reasons that his home grown fruit
will 90 into the market In SO much bet
ter condition than that which is shipped
from a distance that it will bring quite
as good price. even if somewhat later
in season. But by the time his plants
are grown and the fruit is ready for
market the condition may have changed.
Some other grower, not so very far
away, may have found the excellent
opening offered by the same market, and
is there as a competitor. His neighbors
have been inspired by the same idea at
about the same time, and are hardly 2
season behind him with their products
Or his first crops, owing to imperfect
methods of cultivation and handling,
knowledge of which can only be obtained
by experience. have failed to come up to
the high standard of his hopes. These
drawbacks may lead him to the conclu-
sion, if he is man easily discouraged,
that fruit-growing is not profitable. Yet,
with all these discOuragements, it is
strongly probable that his trial acre of
strawberries, or currants, or blackberries
has paid a better net profit than any pos
sible acre Of wheat, or corn, or meadow.
If the acre of fruit has not made a for
tune, it has at least indicated the road to
better income. If the crop was straw
berries, the experience gained will enable
one to duplicate it to better advantage,
with better knowledge OF the most de-
sirable varieties for his. locality. Then
another acre may be put in raspberries
and blackberries, which will follow the
strawberries in the season of harvesting
and marketing. One each may be put in
currants and goose5erlies, which among
small fruits best bear shipping, and will
enable the cultivator to test the value of
other markets after the home trade has
been supplied. Plums, cherries, peaches,
ETC., will follow in their natural order,
until the fruit farm, large or small. be-
comes an accomplished fact, and then, if
it is managed as a systematic business, it
will be strange indeed if it does not yield
handsome return for the capital and
labor invested.
Fruit is every year becoming more
plCuG1INI Ill Jul I1thLNCCS, SLoNA C1S 49,
creased consumption keeps pace with the
supply. If this condition forbids great
profits to the individual specialist in
fruit culture, it improves the chances for
the best Interest of agriculture at large.
1t is better that many should be able to
acquire competence than that one shall
make fortune, and it is one of the be-
nign influences of our progressive agri-
culture that we can put within the reach
of all classes the most wholesome Of
foods. Fruits which were once known
only as deicacies by the masses are now
upon their tables daily in their respec-
tive seasons.
AS our population increases, farmers
all through the great eastern and middle
sections of the country cultivate mainly
the smaller and more delicate products
of the soil. The orchard, the garden,
and the dairy will take the place of grain
fields; and the farmer who plans to
follow this line, content with moderate
returns, will not be the one to exclaim
that t-growing is unprotitable.-
American Agriculturtst.