PROCEEDINGS OF THE ANNUAL MEETING. 



123 



TOW. and thin them out so they will average at least eight or ten inches 

 apart, keeping the row not over twelve inches wide and giving them all an 

 abundance of light and root pasturage. 



My objections to the unrestricted matted rows are serious, and may be 

 stated as follows: There is no money nor pleasure in growing berries in 

 that way ; it involves too much hand work and too much labor in selling 

 the berries; the latter are always poor in flavor, color, and firmness; they 

 spoil the market, because people will not eat them .in great quantities. 

 Who ever heard of a market being glutted with fancy fruit? It simply 

 •oan not be done or, at least, there is no likelihood of its being done. 



Figure 5. 



The runners start out just as the drouth begins. They are thrown 

 •around and twisted into ropes by the cultivator, so many can not get to the 

 ground at all, and none will root unless the ground is moist on top. The 

 runners take all the strength of the plant, and keep it in an exhausted 

 condition. The roots of a plant do not seem to be afiPected by the foliage 

 of the runners as they do by its own leaves. The leaves are the lungs 

 and stomach of the plant, and must assimilate all the food, and a large 

 root growth will not be obtained without liberal foliage. The leaves on 

 unrooted runners do not seem to perform this office only in a limited 

 degree. Examine a very large plant, where runners have been kept off, 

 and notice its immense rootage. Now, take a plant grown without restric- 

 tion, with two or three times as much foliage or embryo plants, and those 

 not rooted, and notice that the roots on the mother plant have made little 

 growth. A plant, in respiring through its leaves, gives off an immense 

 amount of water, several times as much as the hill plant, all of which 

 must come from the short and insufficient rootage of the mother plant. 

 But the worst of all is the inability to stir the surface soil among the thick- 

 matted plants. The cultivator is narrowed up, and often the row is left 

 fifteen or twenty inches wide. The crust forms, and capillary action 

 brings moisture to the surface with the greatest freedom, and the ground 

 •soon becomes very dry to the full depth penetrated by the roots. The 

 plant may be seen wilting only a few days after a good rain. If the drouth 

 be prolonged, many die and others are stunted and will never make a free 

 and vigorous growth, even after fall rains come. If it prove a wet season, 

 and a vigorous growth has been made, the runners have formed so thickly 



