Oswego Strawberries. 147 



Clean straw or swale grass makes the best winter mulch. The 

 rows are covered two to four inches deep. This winter mulch 

 sliould be raked from the plants and left between the rows as a pro- 

 tection to the fruits and a safeguard against drought in the fruiting 

 season. 



The use of well-rotted manure, plowed under when fitting the 

 land for plants, gives the best of results in many cases. Especially 

 is this the case when a dry growing season occurs, the plants being 

 able at once to obtain available plant-food and growing without a 

 check and making runners early in the season. In many soils the 

 manure adds the needed humus. Green or half-rotted manure is 

 more often an injury than a benefit because of the many weed seeds 

 it contains. Many strawberry beds are practically ruined by the 

 weeds introduced by the use of such manure. Perhaps the better 

 method of using manure is to apply it rather heavily to the crop 

 grown on the land the year before strawberries are planted, follow- 

 ing that crop with a cover-crop to be turned under in the spring 

 before setting plants. 



The best growers are always experimenting, and as a result many 

 special practices have developed. One of these, by George A. 

 Davis, will serve as a type : "Last year I marked a three-acre piece 

 3x X 4 ft., setting two plants nine inches apart at each crossing. I 

 cultivated the piece both ways until the plants became numerous 

 enough so that there was risk of destroying them. Then cultiva- 

 tion was continued only one way. The plants were then bedded in 

 the narrow way (3|- ft.), and the cultivator was only run lengthwise 

 (in 4 ft. space), gradually narrowing the cultivator as the plants 

 became more numerous. 



"By tliis method (two plants in a place) there is (1) less risk of 

 waste ground, that is, if a grub eats one there still remains a plant 

 to fill the space ; (2) there is more space for pickers ; (3) cultivator 

 saves expense in hoeing; (4) new plants root much more readily 

 when the soil has been cultivated than in the singfle matted rows." 



Historical Sketch of the Oswego Strawberry Business. 



The Oswego fruit-growers have desired that we put on record a 

 synopsis of the develoi^nient of the strawberry industry in their 



