Mexico weekly ledger., 1898-03-17
DeWberrY Growing For Profit.

Inc iOilO interesting piper was
read by Wallace M. Pearson before
the Audrain County horticultural
Society at the office of M. B. Guthrie
on Monday night, Feb. %:
Mr.. President: / think our worthy
secretary could have suggested some
one who would have gotten up a bet
ter paper for the society on dewberry
culture.
With my limited experience as q
horticultural I feel myself almost in
capable of writing an article on any
subject pertaining to horticulture that
will be either interesting or instruct
i've to any member of the society.
The greatest inducement for me to
infict any article upon this society is
that I indulge the hope that by giving
a short sketch of a few years of prac-
tical experience in growing fruit and
selling nursery stock l may be able to
induce some fellow fruit grower to in
crease his stock of fruit, and he mig bit
come to the conclusion that l am hon.
est in my advice and that 1 would be
a safe man to buy his stock of and !
am sure he would be on the right
track, and if he would just follow his
convictions I would land him some
where with a good bill of fruit on his
hands, which would be all profit if well
cared for.
1t certainly does seem that everyone
who has a farm of any dimension, or
even a vacant lot or city property of
any description, ought to fiud some
kind of fruit which he could plant that
would be useful to his family and also
profitable, and, as a matter of fact,
there is nothing nicer or more healthy
than plenty of fresh fruit for our
neighbors and friends when they come
to see us. I am noted chiefly for my
generosity, especially to the appetites
of myself and family, and for this
reason I have tried to sell all the good
fruit stock ! could in this county, and
I have been fairly successful. As
have helped to place almost all kinds
of fruit in this county that is adapted
to this locality and, if it is properly
handled and cared for, it will only be
a short time until we can have all of
the incest fresh home grown fruit in
our markets every day in the year.
We have one of the best counties in
the State and can grow almost all
kinds of fruit that can be grown any
where in the great State of Missouri,
and we have hundreds of acres of
land that is practically worthless for
anything but growing fruit; and il
more of our citizens would look more
seriously into this matter and give the
fruit industry some financial aid, we
would live easier, longer and happier;
and most of our farmers would soon
have a bank account in their favor,
instead of a mortgage on their farm.
Well. I guess most of you have be-
gun to wonder what has become of
my dewberries for profit; to tell you
the truth, I never realized any profit
out of d~ewberries, except in selling
the vines to someone else. At the
first I bought a dozen plants and I did
not save a single one, for they had
been dead too long. l set them In
the fall of 1892 and in the spring of
1893 l set a dozen more and saved
about six plants; but it got SO we and
the weeds and grass grew SO fast, and
80 did the vines, that they all got
mixed and tangled, so that / could
only COME out in the fall with two livS
ing plants. / had managed to get
them to run upon a fence out of the
way of the weeds, and the next season
l picked a few of as nice berries off of
those two vines as ! ever saw grow; I
think some of them were AxIL
inches-pretty good-size berries, You
will doubtless say-and 30 they were
good size. They vera the Lucretia
variety.
There are several different kinds of
dewberries. The best ! know of, or
ever read of, is the Lucretia dewberry.
1t originated, / think, in Western Vir-
ginia, where they grow wild, and is q
very popular berry, being grown ex-
tensively in some places for profit.