The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1900-08-28
SMALL FRUITS THE MOST PROFITABLE.
o. W.'BLACKNALL
Vance Co., n. G.

SMALL FRUITS THE MOST PROFITABLE.
correspondence of The Progressive Farmer.
Small fruits ire o profitable
than the large ones, but they re-
ouire more labor and study. The
great trouble with small fruits is the
marketing, which at the best is slow
work, and it. requires so much hand
labor that profits are badly cut into.
In spite of this, however, l believe
that it will pay better to plant more
small fruits each year where the
farm is located within a reasonable
distance from a city market. My
s experience has been that the de-
mand is always greater than the
supply Except during a few days
when everybody is rushing fruit to
market), for r~aspberries, currants,
handsome cultivated blackberr1es,
ripe gooseberries, and strawberries.
The supply of the latter is always
the greatest because more people are
engaged in raising them and the
strawberry has come to be recog-
nized as our National small fruit.
Still, I do not believe strawberry
culture is being overdone in any
locality. So long as these berries
sell for from seven to ten cents a box
we can make good profit in raising
them. The few berries that retail
for only three and four cents quart
in the city r the ones that every
grower ought to be ashamed to send
to market. They T the poor, in
significant, half wild berries that
ought never to have been shipped to
the city, or else they are the rem
nants of a lot that was unfortunately
delayed in shipment and decayed.
Strawberries require more work
than any other crop of fruits, and
next to them 1 think the raspberries
should come. In order to raise good
r~aspberries it is necessary to give
good culture, good pruning and good
attention right through the season.
Then the picking time tries the soul
of man. They r the worst berry
to pick on the farm unless it is the
blackberry. 1 do not envy the pick
ers of either, and if we could only
find some way to harvest the crop at
half present cost of labor we would
find these fruits much more popular
among growers. The initial cost of
boxes and crates also make small
fruit culture an expensive labor, and
although these different obstacles
prevent many from entering into the
work of raising them. But those
who want some speciality in farming
that will pay fair returns on the
labor and investment cannot do bet
ter than to study the work of raising
small fruits. When l say study, I
mean that one must learn all there
is to know from books and periodi-
Gals, and then study from nature or
actual experience. This latter is
what most beginners would like to
skip. They would like to secure the
success without paying the cost of
it. But there is no way to do this in
any calling in life. We must give
our time and labor to learn that we
have been all wrong in our theories
and ideas and then begin all over
again. 1t is hard sometimes, but 1
see no way around it.
S. W. CHAMBERS.
The recent report in this paper of
the wheat crop of Mr.. N. Glenn Will
liams, of Yadkin, shows that North
Carolina is not such a poor wheat
State after all. His crop was $3.50
bushels, and the average 28% bush
els to the acre. That was a fine out
come and Yadkin is not accounted a
particularly fertile county. The
result proves what may be had from
the soil of this State under good cu1-
MISUNDERSTANDING.
Mention The Progressive Farmer
when writing advePtiSerS