INDIANA IIOKTICULTURAI. SOCIETY. 443 



1 rotate my strawberry tields about every two or three years. I al- 

 ways have 1113' tield in cowpeas the summer before, and during the fall 

 and winter spread a good coat of manure over the ground and plough 

 in the spring just before planting time. 



Your laud at setting time sliould be in extra fine condition, well pulver- 

 ized, and just ahead of planting, planked down smooth. 



This treatment of the soil will no doubt, with good cultivation, produce 

 a good plant growth. The cowpeas and manure will furnish an extra 

 supply of oxygen and ammonia and perhaps this will be a detriment to 

 the color and flavor of the berry. As the saying is, "the plants will go 

 to vines." If so, then you must look to the other necessary elements ir 

 the soil such as potash and phosphoric acid. The strawl>erry demands a 

 "balanced ration" as well as the horse or cattle. It is just as well for 

 the strawberry man to look after this as the cattleman, if he desires to 

 make a complete success of his business, and put fhe best product on the 

 market. It pays no better to raise scrub strawberries than scrub stock. 



All these elements can be supplied in their concentrated form and the 

 wise grower will find what his conditions lack, and supply it. 



For the past six years I have been using nothing but cowpeas and 

 manure and have produced just what I wanted, a fine growth of plants, 

 with the idea that some one else was to raise the berries. Every berry 

 crop depends upon the man and its environments. 



Lately I have been turning my attention also to the berry crop, and 

 I find I am a little short on color and flavor. Size and color is w'hat you 

 want in a good market berry, something to catch the ej'e. I have now 

 begun an experiment which 1 expect to carry to the end and see the defi- 

 nite results. 



About the last of October Mr. H. A. Huston, formerly State Chemist, 

 visited ray place to m^ike an examination of my soil, preparatory to a 

 thorough and complete expeiiment with commercial fertilizers for straw- 

 berries. Many of these experiments have been made but not on my soil 

 and wnth my conditions. He pronounced my soil w^ell adapted to the 

 growth of the berry and in a high state of cultivation as to humus and 

 plant producing elements. 1 have three different acre fields, that are in- 

 tended for strawberries next season, besides the plant field of ten acres. 

 These three fields are all a little differently located as to lay of land and 

 slope. The first one slopes to the east, the second to the west and the 

 third to the south. I have found in my experience that a very little slope 

 often has a decided effect on the crop of berries, provided we have a hard 

 frost al)<)Ut blossoming time I liave never been seriously affected on more 

 than one field when I have had different slopes, so as to effect the time of 

 l)l(tssomiiig somewhat. In ISIJS 1 lost the west slope, in l'JU3 1 lost four- 

 fifths of the south sl(»i>e from the 1st of May freeze, while the other 

 l»atches wcic not Imit in (lie least. 



