164 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



mixture is recommended as a preventive, though with as much rain as we had last 

 June I doubt if it would be of any value. It will be given a trial another season. 

 We shall be gla 1 to hear from some one better qualified to give us a paper on rust 

 and other diseases of the strawberry. 



Thayer, Mo , December, 1893. 



I have to report the following on strawberries : A. severe frost killed two- 

 thirds of the first blooms, but on eight rods of land I marketed 127 quarts of ber- 

 ries from May 5 to 24; sold for 12J cents a quart, $15.87, or $317.40 per acre net, 

 besides having a full supply for home use all the season through. 



The varieties are Crescent, Bubach, Warfield and Barton's Eclipse. Eleven 

 berries of Bubach of first picking made a full wine-quart box. The Barton Eclipse 

 comes next; were very fine. All these are fine, thrifty growers with me. 



Fifty pear-trees planted March 15 made a growth of four and one-half feet in 

 spite of dry weather. Varieties, Garber, Keiffer, Bartlett and Clapp's Favorite. 

 The first named outstrips all the rest. 



Raspberries have done well for a dry season. For blacks, Hopkins, Doolittle 



and Mammoth Cluster ; reds, Cuthbert and Turner. They have made canes six 



feet long, notwithstanding the drouth. 



Yours respectfully, 



N. A. Hamilton. 

 SMALL FRUITS-HOW TO PLANT AND CULTIVATE. 



G. W. HOl^KINS, SPRINGFIELD, MO. 



The strawberry being the earliest and first to ripen, I shall commence with it. 

 Any soil that will grow corn, if properly managed, will raise good strawberries. 

 New timbered land is considered best, as berries will ripen several days earlier. 

 New land, when set to strawberries, needs no manure; old land should have a 

 dressing of manure, but not too heavy. If too much manure is applied, the plants 

 will make a rank growth and produce but little fruit. I have known patches to 

 prove almost worthless from the application of too much manure. Ground for 

 strawberries should be level, or nearly so, to prevent washing. The following 

 mode of preparing the ground has proved the most successful with me : Plow the 

 ground deep in the fall— if sub-soiled, that much the better— and scatter manure 

 over it during the winter; plow shallow early in the spring, pulverize thoroughly 

 with harrow, and if liable to be dry, run over the ground with a drag, which will 

 pack the soil and help retain moisture. I set plants in rows four feet apart and 18 

 inches in the row ; as soon as the rufiners begin to appear, train them into the row. 

 Continue this until the row is thick enough, then let them branch out at the sides 

 until they form a matted row about 16 inches wide. Some varieties (like Crescent) 

 do better if the runners are all kept oft', otherwise they make so many plants that 

 the berries soon run down so small that they are unsalable. In setting, I mark ofl" 

 the rows with a small shovel from my Planet Jr. cultivator. This shovel is not 

 more than three inches in width, and makes a furrow just right for setting; with 

 one person to drop and two to set, planting is very speedy. By this process the 

 roots of the plants can be spread out in the row, and not chucked into a small 

 hole, as is the case when set with a dibble. 



Cultivation should be commenced within a short time after setting, and kept 

 up continnously until the first of October. In cultivation 1 use the hoe and one- 

 horse Planet Jr. cultivator, which keeps the ground level; never use a double- 

 shovel, as that leaves the plants up on ridges, and if a drouth occurs, they are more 

 readily killed out. As soon as the ground is frozen suHlciently to bear up a wagon 



