212 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



end. They will put a whole wad of roots in a bunch, and of 

 course a large portion of those roots will rot, and the plant 

 will stand still ; it won't grow. No matter where I plant straw- 

 berries, if it is on nothing better than a gravelly hill, they 

 always cover the ground the same year. On the hill to which 

 I have referred, the vines planted last spring now cover the 

 ground, and are a foot high. It is simply from being what I 

 call well planted out, and the cultivation I give them. That 

 is, I keep the ground stirred ; I don't raise any weeds. I have 

 raised just as good a crop of weeds as was ever raised in Bristol 

 County, but on figuring it up, I made up my mind that it was 

 about the poorest crop I ever raised. 



Question. What is your experience with reference to plant- 

 ing in the fall ? 



Mr. Moore. I do not do that. I have planted some this 

 fall ; some new varieties. I have a passion for raising seedling 

 strawberries and grapes, hoping to get something that will be 

 pretty good. I think I have got it now. But I have raised a 

 great many, with which I had no success. 



Question. Why won't a furrow answers? 



Mr. Moore. In the first place, you cannot get your rows so 

 straight ; and, in the second place, by the time you get your 

 ground levelled, you have not gained anything in time. 



The Chairman. The farmers in various parts of the Com- 

 monwealth have, in a degree, followed the suggestions of Dr. 

 Loring. He has suggested that, instead of attempting to raise 

 half a dozen crops, the culture of which they did not under- 

 stand, they would make a specialty of certain things, — fruits or 

 vegetables. I know that this recommendation has been fol- 

 lowed in some parts of Eastern Massachusetts, and with good 

 success. Dr. Loring is present, and I wish he might follow up 

 some of the suggestions he has heretofore made, which have 

 proved so important and so profitable to the farmers who have 

 followed them. 



Dr. Loring. It seems to me a little hazardous for me to 

 undertake to discuss fruit culture, after the reputation I have 

 secured in the Commonwealth as opposed to fruit growing. I 

 have explained my position on the fodder-corn question, and 

 now I rise for another explanation. I have never opposed fruit 



