136 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



during the greater portion of two seasons, and the indifferent quality, as well 

 as uncertain quantity, of the fruit produced ; to which wc may add, the neces- 

 sity of devoting ground sufHcient for two plats. 



PLANTI]S"G 11^ ROWS. 



The second is the process adopted (with occasional variations), hy the great 

 majority of market growers; although it is equally adapted to planting for 

 home or amateur purposes. It consists in confining the runners to a narrow 

 space along the row: — in other words to a wide row or narrow bed, until they 

 shall have yielded one full crop; after which they are permitted to cover the 

 vacant space, and form a new row or bed, for the next year's fruiting, while 

 the old plants are turned under: — this process being continued from year to 

 year, until it is found desirable to transfer the plantation to fresh soil. Use is 

 made of the space thus left vacant, for cultivation (usually by horse power), 

 for the application of mulch and manures, and for the accommodation of 

 pickers. 



The advantages claimed for this process are that it saves the labor and risk 

 of replanting, — economizes the expense of cultivation, and reduces the 

 quantity of land required, facilitates the protection of the fruit by admitting 

 the employment of mulch, and decidedly improves both the quality and 

 quantity of fruit. Still the plants are allowed to cover a narrow bed which 

 must be cleared of weeds and grass by hand labor, and this space consequently 

 cannot be properly mulched as a protection to the fruit, or as a safeguard 

 against drought. Besides these objections the plants must expend a portion of 

 their vigor in the production of runners for the renewal of the plantation each 

 year, v/hicli is so much strength abstracted from their fruit-producing capacity. 

 These objections will be more fully considered when we come to the considera- 

 tion of the 



PLANTING IN HILLS, 



or third process, which is the only one (if we mistake not), in vogue among 

 European growers of this fruit, and which, even in this country, is acknowl- 

 edged to be the only one by means of which even tolerable results can be 

 secured with varieties of European origin. Its application to our native 

 rarieties has, however, been urged for many years, by many of the most suc- 

 cessful and noted of American growers, who hare succeeded in demonstrating 

 very clearly that, at least in their hands, it has been found to be both effective 

 and profitable. 



The strawberry plant doubtless suffers exhaustion from both the production 

 of fruit and the growth of new plants from runners, and the exhaustion from 

 the production of runners and plants, no doubt, detracts so much from its 

 ability to produce and perfect fruit. Failing, in consequence of the removal of 

 the runners, to reproduce itself in the usual way — the result is the storing up 

 in additional crowns (fruit buds), of the vital energies of the plant; each of 

 which, in the proper season, develops its own system of fruits; thus deriving 

 from a single plant the fruit that must otherwise be distributed over a 

 considerable surface. 



The advantages to be anticipated from this process are, the utilizing, as 

 above stated, the entire energies of the plant for the production of fruit : 

 confining the plants to hills so that the entire surface can be mulched, leaving 

 the space between the rows open for cultivation, the application of manures, 

 and the convenience of pickers. The most weighty objection to this system ©f 



