A year or two ago, somebody invented and patented a new box for taking them to market, lighter, neater, cheaper than the old one, and securing thorough ventilation to the fruit. A club of Connecticut men forthwith organized a company with a capital of $10,000 for manufacturing them; built a factory, started an engine, and now have forty hands at work. An agent of the company went through the State last fall, from Middletown to Camden, showing samples, and taking orders. He sold three hundred thousand boxes, many to those who had the old ones, but more to others just wanting them. As he travelled on foot, with samples in his hand, he inquired his way over the country, from farm to farm, and probably discovered every grower of an acre of berries. Of course he could not fail to visit and supply me. He gave me many curious items of information touching the extent of the berry business. There are parties in this country who have fifty acres of strawberries on a single farm, with a thousand dollars invested merely in the small boxes in which they are taken to market. He reports that the two counties of Burlington and Monmouth produce more berries than all the remainder of the State. Strawberries and raspberries are now the staples, to which the blackberry has recently been added. The great consuming stomach of the large cities, having long been fed on these delicious fruits, must continue to buy. Growers seem to know that after thirty years’ propagation of the strawberry, this devouring stomach has never been surfeited,--that the more it is fed the more it consumes.
One morning in September, hearing shots fired repeatedly at the further end of my grounds, and proceeding thither to ascertain the cause, I discovered three great, overgrown boobies, with guns in their hands, trampling down my strawberries, and shooting bluebirds and robins. On inquiring where they belonged, they answered in the next township. I suggested to them that I thought their own township was quite large enough to keep its own loafers, without sending them to depredate on me, warned them never to show themselves on my premises again, and then drove them out. This happened to be the only occasion on which I was invaded by any of the worthless, loafing tribe of gunners, who roam over some neighborhoods, engaged in the manly occupation of killing tomtits and catbirds.