Mr. E. H. Skinner, in an address before the Northern Illinois Horticultural Society said that "where I have laid out the most money in cultivation and manuring, I have realized the largest profit on the investment. Let me illustrate this: In the year 1862, I planted 86 rods of ground to strawberries, it being my first setting beyond a family supply. On this small plat I spent many days, hoeing, cultivating, and raking, making it as fine as a flower garden. All through the season, I really thought myself it would not pay, but I took great delight in having it look so nicely. The result was that I had over fifty-three bushels of extra large fruit, and it being a very dry season, I realized eight dollars per bushel for it, netting me over three hundred dollars above all labor expended, for the fruit on eighty-six rods, or little more than half an acre. This experiment induced me to plant four acres the next season, and I took the same pains in the setting out and the first hoeing, but after that I only gave good ordinary cultivation, and this field looked well; but I could see plainly in the spring following that the yield would not be equal to my first experiment.

I am not able to give the exact expense of this four acres, but it was but little, if any, more than for the first-mentioned one-half acre. We picked one hundred and thirty bushels of fruit, the season being quite a favorable one. The crop sold for eight dollars per bushel, making a total of $1,040, or about $900 for the crop net; $225 per acre in the last instance, and $600 in the first. Now, I would ask, which mode paid the best ?

"In the above estimate of expenses for the first half acre, I should have mentioned the cost of nine days' work with team, hauling and applying water during the drouth. Artificial watering of the strawberry, or other small fruits, although expensive, will pay five hundred per cent on the outlay. The same principle and mode of cultivation will apply to the raspberry and all other small fruits. And if it pays to cultivate thoroughly in growing these fruits for commercial purposes, it pays equally well in growing them for home use.