Wednesday, October 2, 2019

A 600-Bushel Harvest

I knew the Doyles of Stoneboro, Pennsylvania, grew strawberries because both my father, Lee Doyle, and his half-sister, Tressa, mentioned them.  My father had little to say about that fact and seemed uninterested in strawberries.  My aunt had more to say:  "Strawberries are a lot of work."

I had no idea how large the Doyle strawberry patch was but I knew they hired people to help pick because one of my grand-aunts remembered earning a penny per quart to pick berries.  (U. S. Inflation Calculator tells me the value of that penny today would be 24¢.)

It wasn't until about two years ago, after I saw these postcards, that I had a broader sense of the quantity of berries the Doyles grew.  They didn't just grow strawberries, they sold strawberries.

Berries arriving Stoneboro Depot, from Doyle's Farm

June 23, 08.    Banner Week    600 Bus
Scene at Doyls [sic] Berry Farm  Stoneboro Pa.
Yes, caring for the berry plants that supplied 600 bushels of strawberries in one week would be a lot of work!

My parents attended Stoneboro's Centennial Celebration in 1967.  Not long ago I discovered the program my mom saved.  In it were poor copies of the above photographs and the account below.  The photos above are in reverse order to their descriptions below.
     William Doyle, a native of Cambois Colliery near Blythe, Northumberland, England, was owner of the farm, which employed many local citizens during berry picking time in late June and early July.  Many residents will recall picking berries for Mr. Doyle.
     The top picture, with a scene from the farm, notes the banner week of June 23, 1908, as producing 600 bushels.  Many local people are pictured, including Mr. Doyle and members of his family.  The man in the suit, white shirt, bow tie and hat is the "berry man" who came to the farm and made arrangements for shipping the berries.
     The bottom picture shows the produce arriving at the Stoneboro Railroad Station, in horse-drawn wagons, ready for shipments on trains to various points.  One of the destinations was Franklin, where a hotel maintained a standing order for the large "William-Belt" berries which were of such size that 18 filled a quart berry basket.  Among the men pictured at the station are the late George Proud, John Gustafson, John Berrisford, and Gust Doyle, son of William Doyle, the farm owner.

I think 600 bushels -- 19,200 quarts! -- is a lot of berries, but I still didn't have a sense of how large the strawberry patch was.  In a recent search of Google Books I discovered my grandfather, Gust, mentioned in Twenty-Second Annual Report of the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, 1916


Under "List of Nurseries Licensed" in Mercer County, is Augustus Doyle, Stoneboro, with 5 acres of berries or small fruit plants.  There is no family record of Gust growing any small fruit plants other than strawberries.

So let's think about size.  An acre measures 4,840 square yards or 43,560 square feet.  Gust had five times that:  24,200 square yards or 217,800 square feet.  I now hesitate to call what the Doyles had a strawberry patch. 

Next I wanted to know how many strawberry plants might grow in five acres of land.  Strawberry Plants.org gives me the following information. 
If there are 36" between the rows, and if the plants are planted
> 24" apart, there would be 7,260 plants/acre, equaling 36,300 plants on 5 acres.
> 18" apart, there would be 9,680 plants/acre, equaling 48,400 plants on 5 acres.
> 12" apart, there would be 14,520 plants/acre, equaling 72,600 plants on 5 acres.
However, if the rows are closer together, there will be more plants per acre.

These are my Aunt Tressa (Doyle) Wilson's memories of strawberry care on the farm.  By the time she was old enough to help with the plants, in the late 1920s and early 1930s, the strawberry "patch" had decreased to two acres.  She wrote,
     In the spring the 2 acre patch had to be prepared for the strawberries we’d be planting for next year’s crop.  Strawberries were a lot of work.  After the plants started to grow – they had to be hoed to keep the soil away from the heart of the plant, to destroy the weeds, and to keep the soil mellow....  When the blossoms came out on the newly planted plants, we children had to pick off every blossom so the plants could use their strength to send out runners with little plants on.  As the new plants grew and formed roots we had to set the plants in line with the mother plant.  This was to keep them from being uprooted by the cultivator.
     By the time the new strawberry patch had been planted and taken care of with tender, loving care – the berries in the other patch were starting to ripen.  This meant more “back breaking” work.  The berries were picked and brought into the garage to be crated.  Each crate held 32 quarts [which equals a bushel].  After the berries were picked and crated they’d be taken by horse and wagon to the Rail Road Station downtown to be shipped to Franklin to be sold.  In later years we sold the berries to a man who took them to Pittsburgh by truck.  The berries had to be picked every other day.  We never got more than $4.00 a bushel for them.  As the season progressed the price kept dropping – like 3 quarts for a quarter.  The pickers were paid 1¢ (yes - 1 cent) a quart for picking.

Imagine tending 72,000 strawberry plants.  Oh my goodness, what a lot of work!  All by hand in those days.  I don't know what the average harvest of strawberries on the Doyle's five acres of strawberries plants was but isn't it sad that with all those wonderful, fresh strawberries, neither my father nor my Aunt Tressa liked to eat strawberries?

I'm linking this post to Sepia Saturday 496 : 16 November 2019.

–Nancy.

Copyright ©2019, Nancy Messier.  All Rights Reserved. 
Do not copy or use any content from this blog without written permission from the owner. 

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12 comments:

  1. Wow! strawberries were a lot of work. Most of my ancestors were farmers, to discover this level of detail about their farming would be amazing.

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  2. It was fun to find so much information, Barb. I wish you lots of success in finding details about your farming ancestors.

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  3. A fascinating post. Strawberries are still picked by hand. We have strawberry farms nearby. Many of them employ asian pickers. They have umbrellas attached to their picking trolleys so they don't get sunburnt. Quite a funny sight.

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    1. Thank you, Liz. I can't think that strawberries could ever be picked by machine, they are so fragile. I'll have to see if I can find a photograph of the Asian pickers and their trolleys and umbrellas. I would want to be out of the sun, too!

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  4. I used to work in a bakery as a baker of muffins. It was many years after I quit before I could think about eating any kind of muffin again. So I think I get it about them not liking strawberries!
    But, yikes, what a lot of work for so little pay. And strawberries are so very tender - I always throw out at least one or two every time I buy a punnet of them,

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    1. Yes, well, one does get tired of some things after a while, Violet. I guess I can understand the dailiness of muffins but strawberries are but once a year. I wish I knew if the rest of the family felt the same way Dad and Aunt Tressa did.
      Oh, yes, such a lot of work for so little money. And I was wondering about the transport and in what condition the strawberries arrived at their destinations, especially without refrigeration. I'll probably never know.

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  5. Wonderful vintage photographs of strawberry farming - and the first hand account of the early days from Aunt Tressa is very special

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    1. Thank you, Sue. Yes, I'm grateful to have asked Aunt Tressa so many questions and that she responded with such detail.

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  6. Thanks for this interesting bit of history and your family. I have lived close to one of the strawberry capitals of the US - in Florida. And now the Florida strawberries are sold here in North Carolina in their season! I wonder if they are still picked by hand (and whose hands they might be!)

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    1. I suppose strawberries would love the Florida climate, Barbara. Wonderful that you eat them now in North Carolina. I don't think strawberries can be picked by machine, they are so fragile. Do you suppose migrant workers pick them?

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  7. Great photos and story! The arithmetic exercise is something I like to do when trying to imagine big numbers. Picking berries was tough work but the aroma of so many strawb's must have been a refreshing delight!

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    1. Thanks, Mike. I just couldn't not do the arithmetic for this post. I was just too curious! We picked berries when I was a kid and they did smell wonderful -- and were delicious to eat, warmed by the early morning sun.

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