THIRTY-SEVENTH ANNUAL REPORT. 41 



to go to runners and not be so fruitful as those taken near the plant. Have 

 you made any investigation along that line? 



Prof. Fletcher: I have not gone far enough to show that. We are taking 

 runners, though, both before the plant is fruited, and after, and will compare. 

 The theory has been held by many that fruitfulness weakens the plant; 

 that if you take runners after the strawberry plant is fruited they will not 

 be as productive. We are taking runners before the plant if fruited, and 

 after, to compare them. 



Q. Mr. President, it seems to me, without giving the matter very much 

 thought, that most plants are taken before the parents have fruited. Take 

 for instance, the bed planted last spring, that has not fruited, but has set 

 runners. Next spring, ordinarily the plants for setting new beds will be 

 taken from that plantation. And that I think is the general custom; runners 

 are usually taken before the plants are fruited. It is not common to take 

 plants from an old fruiting bed to make a new bed. 



Prof. Fletcher: I think that practice is wrong. I can see the great 

 advantage of it from the nurseryman's point of view. It is just the same 

 as taking buds from a nursery row, isn't it? I believe if carried out a long 

 while that will seriously reduce the productiveness of those plants. 



Q. It is the universal practice I believe. 



Prof. Fletcher: I know it is; but I don't think it is a right one. I believe 

 every two or three years we should go back to a bearing parent plant, as 

 the best nurseryman do with fruit trees. 



Q. Have you any authority, or any experiment, or any record any- 

 where, for the statement? It is all right to make a statement, but is it a 

 theory or is there any authority in regard to it? 



Prof. Fletcher: There was an experiment in which they took strawberry 

 plants and set them out, but instead of letting them fruit the next year 

 took up some of them and set out new beds; next year the same; keeping 

 that up for nine years, I think, never allowing them to fruit. At the end 

 of nine years they allowed some to fruit, in comparison with the decendants 

 of the original stock, which had been allowed to fruit meanwhile, and they 

 found a most decided difference. I don't know what the number of that is, 

 but it is in one of your bulletins. 



President Cook: We would like to hear from Mr. Hale on the subject 

 of strawberries. 



Mr. J. H. Hale: Mr. President, you will get me in a muss if you get me 

 talking on this subject. I have been growing strawberries ever since I was 

 six years old, and now as I am both a grandfather and a grandmother, I 

 think have reached years of maturity if not judgment. 



I have been growing plants for sale like the rest of some of you Michigan 

 nurseryman, and we want to get all the plants we can to the square yard; 

 the more and better ones of course we can get the more we can sell them 

 and get the money for them. I am going out of the strawberry business 

 now, so far as the berry growing is concerned ; but I am thoroughly satisfied 

 from over 40 years of growing strawberries that you can get more fruitful 

 plants on the whole to take them from plants that have already fruited; 

 you won't get as many plants. I know the old Wilson strawberry, which 

 I grew for a great many years — it ran out with a great many peojjle; I found 

 that whenever I took plants from an old fruiting bed. cleaned out the bed 

 after fruiting; fertilized it thoroiighl}^ and got some new plants growing, and 

 took those and made my new fruiting bed. I didn't get as many runners 

 on my bed the next year; I didn't make plants I could afford to sell for less 

 6 



