No one ever watched the opening of the blossoms, their dropping off, and the formation of the fruit, more attentively than I did. Every spare hour was passed among them. The bees flew over the beds, dipping into one flower after another, and filling the air with a perpetual humming. Even at the earliest morning hour, when the sun had barely reached the garden, I found them at their honeyed labors. The poet who declared that many a flower was born to blush unseen, and waste its sweetness on the desert air, must have believed that the winged denizens of the air had no inheritance in them,—that their sweets were wasted because no human eye was present to admire them. I cannot agree with him; for here, when our garden was a solitude, with no human eye to admire its wealth of blossoms, they were thick with bees, and surely upon them their sweets were far from being wasted. The flowers must have been created as much for the enjoyment of nameless insects as for the gratification of man.
As May advanced, I could see the fruit forming in clusters that gave token of an ample crop. But as the heat increased I found that other candidates for observation presented themselves in prodigious numbers, not near so interesting, but imperatively demanding attention. The weeds shot up all through and between the rows with a luxuriance that astonished me. The winter reading of my agricultural library had taught me that good strawberries cannot be expected when a rank growth of weeds is permitted to occupy the soil. My father's garden-tools were heavy and clumsy, made only for a strong man to use; but we plied the hoes vigorously in keeping down the interlopers. They were dull tools, with thick handles, unsuitable for women's use, so that the mere weight of the implements fatigued us more than the labor of hoeing. But all the family shared in this work until it was accomplished, and our ground was made as cleanly as that of our neighbors. Besides the extermination of a host of pests that sucked up the nutriment and moisture necessary to the plants, the operation kept the surface of the ground open and mellow, permitting the sun and air to penetrate, and thus stimulate the growing fruit into berries of superior size. I am sure that it is by attention to this single matter of permitting no weeds to grow that most of the success in strawberry-culture may be attributed.
As I watched my fruit-laden plants as attentively as if each one had been an infant, it should not be wondered at that my ever-present eye detected the first tinge of redness that showed itself among them. No one can imagine with how absorbing an interest I hung over this pioneer evidence of complete success. I could tell which row contained it, and on which plant in the row a blushing cheek was held up to the sun. But in a day or two the identity of the ripening berry was lost, for a thousand of its fellows became equally ambitious of notice, changing their delicate green into a softened, but decided scarlet. The hot suns of early June were pouring down upon the sheltered spot where the plants were growing, and it was time for them to ripen their wealth of fruit. I presume that he who boasts the possession of a dozen acres of strawberries has never experienced sensations such as were now the ruling ones of my heart. Here was I—a sewing-girl—breaking through the ordinary routine of female occupations, and standing on the threshold of an enterprise considered by the world unsuited to my sex, unfeminine because uniformly undertaken by men, hazardous because untried by women, but practically within the power of all having taste and courage to venture upon it,—here was I about to realize the dream of a whole year, the reward of untold anxieties, the solution of the great problem whether the garden were better than the needle.
The very day I made the discovery that the first berry had begun to change color, I hastened to my friend the market-woman, intending to tell her how finely I was coming on, and that she must be prepared to sell my crop. As I had no acquaintance with other strawberry-growers, I had little opportunity of ascertaining by comparison with them whether my fruit would come earlier or later into market than that of others, but took it for granted that mine would be first. It was the mistake of an ignorance which subsequent reading and observation have corrected. Thus, when I came up to the widow's stand in the market, I was confounded at seeing her sitting beside a huge wooden tray heaped up with ripe berries. No doubt I had seen the same thing as early in the season, years before, but, having no interest in the subject as a fruit-grower, I had never consulted dates. But now, being deeply interested, the effect of this prematurely early display of fruit was that of astonishment and disappointment. I knew that being early in the market was a vital point, and supposed that I was as early as the earliest; but here was evidence that I had been forestalled. I had hardly courage to inquire where these berries came from, or what price she was getting for them. But the crowd of purchasers around the stand was so great that no one would have noticed my appearance, even if my emotions had been written on my face. They were contending with each other to be served, and at seventy-five cents a quart! This much could be seen and heard without the trouble of inquiry. How I envied the grower of the precious fruit in which so many were indulging at this extravagant price! How the sight dismayed me,—I had been so completely anticipated by some more skilful cultivator! I did not even seek to catch the widow's eye, nor to ask a single question. The spectacle so discouraged me that I moved off with a heavy heart to my accustomed avocations.
It was but dull practice on my sewing-machine during the whole of that day. It is true I thought a thousand times of my own strawberries, but then those of my successful competitor were quite as often in my mind. How this thing could happen, and why one cultivator should thus anticipate all others, and command the market when prices were so enormous, I could not then understand. But I resolved to have the matter explained. Next morning I was up at daybreak and at the widow's stand. She was already there, and was engaged in putting the little fixtures in order on which her daily stock of fruits and vegetables was to be displayed. No customers were yet visible in this early gray of the morning, and there was an opportunity for me to make the momentous inquiries I desired. But there was the same great wooden tray, again up with at least a bushel of strawberries. My first question was as to where they came from.
"From Baltimore, Miss," was the reply. "You know they ripen there two weeks earlier than here. It is farther south, the climate is warmer, and they come here on the railroad until the price falls so low as to make it unprofitable to send them. But they are a small, poor berry, not equal to yours, and will not be in your way. When yours come to market, these will be all gone. People buy these only because they can get no better ones."
Here was a mountain of discouragement removed at once. I had not been forestalled by a neighbor, but only anticipated by some one who had taken advantage of a warmer climate. Besides, the widow repeated her cheering assurance of the year before, that she could readily dispose of all I might have,—not, however, at the high prices she then was getting, because the same sun that was to ripen mine would ripen those of all others around me, and bring them into market at the same time; but if mine should be better than others, she would be able to secure better prices for them.
I went home to breakfast with a lighter heart, and that day at the factory made up for the deficiencies of the preceding. But since then, after the experience of an entire season, I have looked carefully into this matter of the importance of being first in the market, and I find it runs through and influences almost every department of horticulture which is pursued as a source of gain. The struggle everywhere appears to be for precedence. The horticultural world knows that there is a waiting community of consumers who stand impatient for the advent of the first ripened fruits. It knows that with these the price occasions no hesitancy in the purchase: they are able to pay. Hence no resource of art or skill is left unpractised to minister to a craving appetite that yields a reward so golden. One producer erects hot-houses, into which he crowds the plants that otherwise would be hybernating, and, creating an artificial summer, stimulates the strawberry into bloom, then into fruit, even in the depth of winter the ripened berries are seen at some of the most celebrated fruit-stores. They command fabulous prices,—a spoonful of them readily bringing a dollar, without the demand being supplied. The rich always have money to spend; and though the world is never without its poor, yet it seems also to be never without an abundance of those who have more than they can wisely dispose of. This branch of horticulture must be profitable, as it is rapidly extending in the neighborhood of all our large cities. These hot-house fruits are the earliest in the market.
Other growers move off to a warmer climate, within one or two days' ride of the great city by railroad, and, by help of hotter suns, crowd their half-ripened fruits into Northern markets nearly a month in advance of local cultivators. Only those varieties being grown which are naturally earlier than all others, they blush into redness while ours have scarcely reached their full size. Taken from the vines in an unripe condition, they are crisp and firm, and the fast express-train whirls them over hundreds of miles, the ripening process, as well as the decaying one, going on meanwhile. It is costly transportation to the growers, but the impatient public pay with readiness a price so extravagant as to make for these wholesale pioneers a stupendous profit. Thus the warm alluvial lands encircling Norfolk fill the markets from Baltimore to Boston with the earliest fruit. It is unripe, and deficient in the full flavor of the strawberry; but what care the wealthy public for that? It is the first in market,—they have been a year without it,—it has somewhat of the genuine aroma,—and, ripe or unripe, they cannot refrain. Great sums are annually realized by these earliest caterers for the public palate. The hot-house process is comparatively a retail operation; but this traffic reaches to the dignity of a great industrial enterprise, employing hundreds of hands, pouring ample freightage into the coffers of express-companies, and enriching the men by whom it is conducted. It is exclusively the offspring of Northern shrewdness, the sluggish instincts of the Southerner unfitting him for an occupation requiring incessant activity and promptness,—while its apparent littleness, the peddling of strawberries, were unworthy a race whose inheritance is cotton or tobacco.
For a few weeks these cultivators have entire possession of the Northern market. In time, however, our suns become hotter, ripening the fruits of our own fields. Then comes the rivalry among ourselves,—who shall be earliest with the best fruit;—for herein lies an important element of general success.