100 AGRICULTURE OF MAINE. 



I have not spoken much about the diseases or insects that 

 bother the strawberries. There are not many and they are 

 easily controlled. There are practically no diseases of the 

 strawberry which cannot be controlled by spraying and it is a 

 very easy plant to spray. Blight, leaf spot and fungous diseases 

 respond very rapidly to bordeaux mixture. Practically the 

 worst of the insects is the white grub. I know of no insect 

 I am more afraid of than that, on the strawberry plants. But 

 by the proper rotation of crops on the land you can practically 

 get rid of it. It is not wise to plant strawberries right after 

 grass. The land is apt to be full of the eggs of the white grub, 

 laid by the ordinary June beetle, and you are likely to get them 

 on your strawberry plants. So if you can get in a year between 

 grass and strawberries with some such crop as corn, beans, or 

 anything of the sort, you will be sure to get rid of the white 

 grub. There is hardly any chance of its being in the same land 

 a long time providing there are crops grown that it cannot eat, 

 but strawberries after strawberries in a continual line is a very 

 bad policy. Then there is the ordinary cut worm which we 

 have to contend with, but I have found that spraying with 

 arsenate of lead or Paris green will practically get rid of it. 

 The cut worm comes up out of the ground as a rule and eats 

 the tender leaves of the plant just in the early spring and spray- 

 ing with some arsenical poison will dispose of this pest. 



So much for the strawberry. The raspberry is probably not 

 as important commercially as the strawberry, but still it is 

 grown in great quantities in the West where in certain sections 

 it is used for canning or drying. Here in New England we 

 practically depend on the West for our fresh raspberries, and 

 it is a fruit that ought never to be shipped any long distance. 

 You see in the Boston market raspberries that come in there 

 in very bad condition. The nature of the fruit is such that the 

 least bit of weight on it settles the berries together and by the 

 time they have traveled a couple of hundred miles, or even fifty 

 miles, they have settled so they hardly half fill the boxes, and 

 even by the use of pint boxes, or cups, one-fourth quarts, and 

 all those different varieties of packages, we don't overcome this 

 difficulty very much; so that the raspberry ought to be grown 

 close to the market ; more so, almost, than any other fruit. In 

 certain sections it requires a good deal of winter protection, 



