The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1896-06-01
A Strawberry Town.

Sarcoxie is the strawberry town of
southern Missouri. 1t was discovered
that it was particularly designed for
strawberry culture in 1889. A few
years before that nurseryman put out
a few plants and found the berries
therefrom exceedingly good He then
planted q few acres, which were so
profitable that his neighbors gave up
the cultivation of corn and planted
their stony fields with Strawberries.
The strawberry acreage increased
gradually until now five hundred acres
are under cultivation, and this year
thousand acres more have been put in
plants, which will bear next season.
There is now one strawberry farm OF
one hundred acres, several of fifty
acres, and from that down to one acre.
The business men, lawyers doctors and
clerks have the strawberry fever, and
it is difficult to find man in SarcoXie
who doesn't grow strawberries. The
strawberries is about forty thousand
dollars, and next year it will probably
be over one hundred thousand dollars.
About thirty thousand dollars is paid
in wages every year to berry-pickers,
and this will be more than doubled next
year 1t takes five thousand persons
to pick Sarcoxie's berry crop this year,
and ten thousand will be needed next
year
The berry growers have an organiza-
ton that protects their interests and
makes their crops profitable. They
have banded themselves into a horti-
cultural association, which elects di-
rectory of five from it's members. This
directory is in perpetual session during
the berry season, which lasts four
weeks, beginning May 10. The associ-
alton sells the products of the day
when the day comes. Bids for the fruit
are sent to it from all over the country
and the berries so to the firm that has
the best commercial rating and reputa-
ton for honesty and bids the highest
price Ten carloads a day are the av-
erage shipment from Sarcoxie. This
means six thousand crates or nearly
one hundred and fifty thousand quarts
| of berries.
The profits Of berry couture are vari-
able with the season. The gross re-
| ceipts from an acre of berries are
about one hundred and twenty-five dol
lars 1t costs about fifteen dollars an
acre to buy plants and set them out
and about as much more for cultivation
| and other expenses. A Sarcoxie berry
| grower received six hundred dollars
this season for the product of four
acres Of exceptional berries and the
purchaser paid for picking them. An
other made three hundred and seventy
| five dollars from three-quarters of an
acre, and so it goes. Some of the land
on which strawberries are most sue
cessfully grown is not fit for anything
else, and would not sell for ten dollars
| an acre.
Around and about the town of Sar-
coke are camped five thousand berry
pickers. The berry picking season is
the annual vacation Of the people with
in hundred or more miles of Sarcoxie.
| AS the picking season approaches the
horticultural association advertises for
pickers, and they begin to come in from
Ozark country, Kansas, Arkansas, In
dian territory and Oklahoma. They
come in parties of fifty and hundred
sometimes, their white-covered wagons
| catching up with one another or meet
ing at crossroads and naturally form
ing into parties Kansas City Star