The Berry Math That Made Puyallup

By Col. J. Hinson, manager of the Puyallup Fruit Growers' Association, in the Puyallup Citizen:

No section of the country can show a better variety and quality of fruits than those grown in and about Puyallup. In the absence of definite figures it is impossible to more than guess their annual value, but naming the sum of $30,000 would certainly not be exceeding the amount. There was marketed from here during the season of 1897 about 17,000 crates of berries, which brought to the growers an average of $1 per crate, and this sum does not include those consumed by growers' families. The average price for the season probably exceeded $1 per crate for berries sold. One grower gave his sales as follows, accurate account having been kept:

116 crates strawberries, $120.35; average, $1.03½. 29¼ crates raspberries, $26.12; average, 90c. 25 crates blackberries, $27.25; average, $1.09. Total, 170¼ crates, $173.72; average, $1.02.

It is safe, therefore, to say that the berry crop sold for about $18,000 in 1897. To this may be added all other fruits, such as cherries, pears, plums, prunes and apples, and it would seem that $12,000 for tree fruits would not be a large estimate.

The Sufficiency of Fruits.

Fruit growing here has many advantages over other sections of the country, climate and soil being especially favorable. Beginning in May with gooseberries, followed by strawberries June 1st, raspberries and currants June 20th, and blackberries July 10th, the berry season extends to November, covering a period of six months, enabling the small growers to do all their work with home help, and giving a continual cash income, making a small home in Puyallup a very desirable acquisition. One acre of land judiciously set to fruit, with a garden spot for vegetables, will give to the average family a very comfortable living.

Cost and Profit.

Berries can be grown with some profit with hired labor at 75 cents per crate, but when selling below that figure the profit is apt to be on the wrong side of the account. When grown with home help, including the picking, even 50 cents a crate will leave a margin for the growers' time and labor.

But berry growers, like other people, have some things yet to learn before they can be entitled to go to the head of the class. A strawberry plant, for instance, at its very best, will give two boxes of berries, and yet it may truthfully be said that no grower here can really show one box for two plants, taxing his field through. With probably the best strawberry land in the world, we cannot expect the soil to do all the work. A mixture consisting of brains and muscle makes an excellent addition to the soil, not only for strawberries, but other fruits as well. No plant known to the farmer will better repay care and labor bestowed than the strawberry.

Raspberries.

The Puyallup lands seem to be the natural home of the red raspberry, the valley and the uplands alike showing excellent results; and immense crops are grown, which find ready market in Idaho, Montana, North and South Dakota, shipments being made also into Minnesota and Nebraska. This choice fruit is highly appreciated by all who have been able to sample it, and the universal cry is for more. Just at present we are between a feast and a famine, too little for car lots and too much for less than carload lots. In another year or so we will have enough of it to ship carload lots to St. Paul and Minneapolis, and other equally distant points, and then the matter will regulate itself. The cannery project now before our people, if successful, will materially aid in settling this matter.

A Bad Practice.

The black cap is another choice fruit which invariably brings good prices, but owing to inferior varieties which have had the lead among growers, it has not been considered profitable, and quite a number have torn them out. Had only the better varieties been grown, different results would have followed. In all probabilities these inferior varieties are really only the wild berry transplanted, and that probably will account for inferiority.

Blackberries are usually upon the market early in July, and continue bearing until November. As a rule, better prices are obtained for blackberries than for either strawberries or raspberries, and, in all probability, they are more profitable. The Evergreen, being a late berry, ought to occupy a part of every field, but of the earlier varieties growers differ in their opinions as to which is the best. The Lawton, Kittatinny and Snyder all grow readily and produce well, but the Snyder probably leads them all in productiveness, its weakness being to set more fruit than it can mature. This can be remedied, however, by clipping, or, what would be still better, high fertilization.

Pears, Prunes and Plums.

Of pears, it may be said that Western Washington grows them spontaneously, and Puyallup is fully up with the best. It is evident, however, that many of the older trees would be more valuable in the kitchen stove than as fruit producers, but the newer orchards are all right. It may be that the weakness, if any, may be on the part of the grower, and not of the tree, for they have been allowed to overbear to such an extent that the wonder is the trees live at all. Thinning fruit is something everybody advocates and nobody practices.

Prunes and plums grow to perfection, and the "shot-clay" uplands are said to be the very best of prune lands, the Italian, the principal drying variety, seeming to do its best in these soils. Incidentally it may be said here that Prof. Fulmer, chemist at the agricultural college at Pullman, says our "shot-clay" soils of Western Washington are the very best in the state. When it is considered that not one acre in fifty of these soils are in cultivation, some idea of the gold mine by which we are surrounded may be obtained.

The President of Fruits.

It is impossible in an article of this kind to do full justice to all of our fruits—or, in fact, more than touch upon or notice the several kinds—but no article can be considered complete without mentioning the king of all fruits, the apple. The word president might sound better to an American, but conventionalities cannot always be overlooked, and the title "king of fruits" has been given to the apple by another, and if that means that it crowns them all, then the title has been well bestowed.