Success with Small Fruits

by Edward Payson Roe

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. 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 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 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 centre, 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 marvellous 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 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 commission 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 centre 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 unrivalled 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 skilful 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 centre 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.

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, surrounded 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.