I08 AGRICUI.TURE; OF MAINE. 



Question : When you are troubled with white grubs, do 

 you reset other plants? 



Mr. Wheeler: Yes, when a plant is eaten out by a white 

 grub, I reset another plant taken from another field, or in the 

 hill system when a plant is missing, let the next plant make 

 one runner to fill in that space if I haven't got plants to take 

 out from another bed. Always reset them so as to keep the 

 beds full. The white grub can easily be taken out; generally 

 there is only one in a place. Even if there are a good many you 

 can often save a bed by taking these pests out. I don't know of 

 any insect poison, or anything of that sort, that will attack the 

 white grub under ground. I have heard of the use of bi-sul- 

 phide of carbon injected into the soil where they are, but it 

 W'Ould take a great deal longer to do that than to dig the grubs 

 out. 



HANDLING THE FRUIT CROP. 



By Proe. T. M. Lombard, Auburn. 



I will confine myself to strawberries, though I believe a large 

 part of what may be said about berries applies as well to fruit 

 of all kinds, and in fact, to much of the market garden truck 

 grown and sold in such quantities in these two cities. 



Handling the crop is a large problem. In the first place, 

 harvesting the strawberry is of very great importance. 



Quite a proportion of the strawberries raised about here 

 never find the market, having been destroyed by the knees or 

 feet of the picker, or left on the vines to rot. Quarts of ber- 

 ries that do find the market, so far as looks go, have been ruined 

 in the field. 



To gather in a crop of three, five or ten thousand quarts of 

 strawberries, requires about all the children in a neighborhood, 

 and to do it properly requires a man able to control his whole 

 picking force, and govern his own soul. Due consideration of 

 little details is every time rewarded. Painstaking care in the 

 harvest attracts attention in the market places. A berry when 

 picked should be immediately dropped into the box, never re- 

 tained in the hand, till more berries are taken off. Once in the 



