Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 35, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 February 1903 — Afraid of Too Much Strawberry. [ARTICLE]

Afraid of Too Much Strawberry.

Editor Republican: In a recent issue in your paper I Eoticed the announcement that another man was going into the small fruit business. These men who contemplate raising small! fruit had better consider the fact as to whether the market bere ig; not already fully supplied. “There is always room for one more” is not applicable to small fruit raising in this locality at least. The man who raises any kind of small fruit here must defend dh ’the home market. He cannot ship them at a profi*. This has been repeatedly tried, al- 1 ways with the same results. Rensselaer will take from five hundred to eight hundred boxes of strawberries a day during the season.; Ard the fruit must be a good quality at that or half the amount

will go begging. I have been in the business a number of years and know pretty near what I am talking about. There is not a season passes but what berries and many of them sell at less than the cost of production. Double or treble the supply and the fruit growers will be in the same boat that many of the strawberry growera. last year were in Michigan. It was estimated by some large dealers that no less than 300 acres of strawberries in that state were plowed up and planted in potatoes. They would not pay the picking and transportation. Raspberries are not well adapted to our soil and climate. lam here to make the proposition that not a man in Jasper Co. has ever made a cent on raising raspberries. The canes kill in winter so badly of the best varities, that it is scarcely worth while to plant them. < There is no market here for currents or gooseberries. The market is already over supplied with plums as it is almost every where. Any one wishing to go into the fruit business would better buy one of the farms already established than to attempt to start a new one. Strawberry Growe