Success with Small Fruits

by Edward Payson Roe

"Oh, Lor' yes! Heaps on 'em gits fallen in love; den dey gits a-marryin' arter de pickin' time is done gone by."

"Now I see what your partnership means."

"Yah, yah, yah! You sees a heap more dan I's told you!" But her partner grinned most approvingly. We were afterward informed that there was no end to the love-making among the strawberry rows.

There are from fifty to one hundred and fifty pickers in a squad, and these are in charge of subordinate overseers, who are continually moving around among them, on the watch for delinquencies of all kinds. Some of these minor potentates are white and some black. As a rule, Mr. Young gives the blacks the preference and on strictly business principles, too. "The colored men have more snap, and can get more work out of their own people," he says. By means of these sub-overseers, large numbers can be transferred from one part of the farm to another without confusion.

Fortunes are never made in gathering strawberries, and yet there seems no dearth of pickers. The multitude of men, women, and children that streams out into the country every morning is surprisingly large. Five or six thousand bushels a day are often gathered in the vicinity of Norfolk, and the pickers rarely average over a bushel each. "Right smart hands," who have the good hap to be given full rows, will occasionally pick two bushels; but about thirty quarts per day is the usual amount, while not a few of the lazy and feeble bring in only eight or ten.

As has been already suggested, the pickers are followed by the buyers and packers, and to these men, at central points in the fields, the mule-carts bring empty crates. The pickers carry little trays containing six baskets, each holding a quart. As fast as they fill these, they flock in to the buyers. If a trayful, or six good quarts, are offered, the buyer gives the picker a yellow ticket, worth twelve cents. When less than six baskets are brought, each basket is paid for with a green ticket, worth two cents. These two tickets are eventually exchanged for a white fifty-cent ticket, which is cashed at the paying-booth after the day's work is over. The pickers, therefore, receive two cents for every quart of good, salable berries. If green, muddy, or decayed berries are brought in, they are thrown away or confiscated, and incorrigibly careless pickers are driven off the place. Every morning the buyers take out as many tickets of these three values as they think they can use, and are charged with the same by the book-keeper. Their voucher for all they pay out is another ticket, on which is printed "forty-five quarts," or just a crateful. Only Mr. Young and one other person have a right to give out the last-named tickets, and by night each buyer must have enough of them to balance the other tickets with which he was charged in the morning. Thus thousands of dollars change hands through the medium of four kinds of tickets not over an inch, square, and by means of them the financial part of gathering the crop is managed.

In previous years these tickets were received the same as money by any of the shops in the city, and on one occasion were counterfeited. Mr. Young now has his own printing-office, and gets them up in a way not easily imitated, nor does he issue them until just as the fruit begins to ripen. He has, moreover, given authority to one man only to cash these tickets. Thus there is little chance for rascality.

He also requires that no ticket shall be cashed until the fields have all been picked over. Were it not for this regulation, the lazy and the "bummers" would earn enough merely to buy a few drinks, then slink off. Now they must remain until all are through before they can get a cent. Peters and Harrison see to it that none are lying around in the shade, and thus, through the compulsion of system, many, no doubt, are surprised to find themselves at work for the greater part of the day.

And yet neither system nor Peters, with even his sanguinary reputation, is able alone to control the hordes employed. Of course the very dregs of the population are largely represented. Many go out on a "lark," not a few to steal, and some with the basest purposes. Walking continually back and forth through the fields, therefore, are two duly authorized constables and their presence only prevents a great deal of crime. Moreover, according to Virginian law, every landholder has the right to arrest thieves and trespassers. Up to the time of our visit, five persons had been arrested, and the fact that they were all white does not speak very well for our color. The law of the state requires that they shall be punished by so many lashes, according to the gravity of the offence, and by imprisonment. The whipping-post is one of the institutions, and man or woman, white or black, against whom the crime of stealing is proved, is stripped to the waist and lashed upon the bare back. Such ignominious punishment may prevent theft, but it must tend to destroy every vestige of self-respect and pride in criminals, and render them hopelessly reckless. Therefore, it should cease at once.

It must be admitted, however, that very little lawlessness was apparent. In no instance have I received a rude word while travelling in the South, while, on the other hand, the courtesy and kindness were almost unstinted.