Arkansas used to have the best strawberries in the world. Lots of pickers were required.

Barbara, this is a fantastic picture, I absolutely love it. Do you know the date of this picture? Thanks for all the great pictures I really enjoy all of them.

I don't know about the rest of the folks there but that boy holding the crate of berries sure looks happy. 

Did I gather that there may be a question about this area not having the best strawberries in the world?  Try if they like...and we may be a bit partial...but I think we STILL have the BEST strawberries in the WORLD.   There may not be as many as there used to be and they may be a more expensive than they used to be...but they are still the best! 

We had a gentleman give a quart of strawberrties to each mother this year for Mother's Day at church...what a hit!  The aroma from those berries was quite distracting...GOOD BERRIES!  Thanks!

picking strawberries is back breaking WORK!  My memory is picking for a classmate's father in his "patch"...I lasted 2 days, my friend Judy, only lasted one day.  We got a nickle a quart.....I saved my hard earned money for a long time before I would part with it, but I remember what I bought with my money:  a wooden ukelele , and bought it, of all places at Headlee's Rexall Drugstore.    classmates name:  Leon Martindale.  We called his father "old man Martindale"....

Barbara: try eating them like this:  dip in sour cream, then in brown sugar.  It goes without saying they should be room temperature.

I think the wagon says  Pacific Compress Co.

Are those workers in the field in the background? Are those tents lined up against the woods on the far side of the field?

Those folks look like they have on thier Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes. Not like anythng one would want to wear while picking strawberries. That thing that the little boy has that appears to be full of strawberries was called a "carrier". You placed 6 quarts on the carrier to be filled, when they were full of berries, they were then carried to the shed to be accounted for, and start all over agan. When we had a strawberry patch, the price was pretty good at the market at the beginning of the season. When the market got flooded, they wouldn't bring enough money to pay one to hire them picked and truck them to market. I still have as souvenirs, some little "strawberry cards" that my daddy had printed probably in the 1930s. Cards which would be given to the pickers when they brought their berries to the shed. They are about 1 1/2 inches long, and about 3/4 in wide. They are different colors according to the number on them, and were marked 1 qt., 5qts., etc. People would collect them as they turned in their berries, and cash them in at the end of the day for pay.    

Ms. Barbara, this has been a very educational post, with everything from new recipes to try in the kitchen to historical economics.  Love it!

We didn't think our berries were going to make it home from church.  The boys kept eating them out of the containers...I would prefer them washed and with some sugar available but they didn't think they needed anything added.  It was a neat gift...especially when you think about the Strawberry Festival.  (Dipped in melted chocolate is a really good way to eat them too.)

Barbara, as to your quesions to me, I have no idea why this picture might have been taken, nor what is in the backgound. Also, I did not mean to imply that all strawberry growers paid the same way my dad did. They didn't, some kept an account in a tablet, and maybe other ways. I think the way my dad did it was a carry-over from the old days.