94 AGRICULTURE OF MAINE. 



because of the hard work there was in caring for the plants, 

 weeding, cuhivating, etc., after they began to make a mat of 

 plants in the row. It was almost impossible to get men to do 

 this work properly, particularly the setting of the runners or 

 the pulling of the runners. Now the question comes down to 

 simply pulling the runners off, and the ordinary Italians we 

 can hire for $1.50 a day do that work just as well as a man 

 who has been trained in the business can in setting the runners 

 or pulling part of them oft* in the matted row. In the hedge 

 system where you set only a few runners, that is easier than 

 in the wide matted row. But if you are going to grow for 

 good fruit keep the plants in hills, or keep some of the runners 

 pulled off in the hedge row, so you will have more sunlight 

 around the plants and consequently larger fruitage. From 

 plants in bearing the first year in hills, we picked in some cases 

 a quart and a half and the strawberries would average over a 

 quart on such varieties as Glen Mary, Sample, ]\Iinute Alan, 

 Meade and Abington. From plants set in this way in hills, 

 from 26,000 to 28,000 to the acre, according to the distance you 

 put them, I do not think it would be out of the way to say that 

 20,000 quarts can be grown to the acre. Some claim as high 

 as 30,000 to 35,000. You can not get every plant to yield ex- 

 actly the same amount, any more than you can get every tree 

 to yield the same. I believe that any one who is going into 

 the business should plant strawberries in this way on a small 

 scale. One-third of an acre or a quarter of an acre planted in 

 this way will produce more fruit and require less attention than 

 an acre of matted rows of any other system that I know of. 



Now the variety of the strawberry you wall grow depends 

 entirely on the market to which you are going to cater. I have 

 stated at different times that so far as the quality of the straw- 

 berry is concerned I don't think the difference amounts to any- 

 thing. I think it is simply a matter of letting the fruit ripen. 

 If you want to get strawberries for your home table, grow any 

 of the varieties — I wouldn't pick out any names and say one 

 was better than another — it is simply a matter of letting them 

 get ripe. We are so apt to go out and pick the strawberry just 

 as soon as it begins to grow red; the first of the season we 

 never get a high quality of fruit. But if you go out at the end 

 of the season every strawberry you pick tastes good. I fail to 



