SUMMER MEETING. 39 



any market. Let everybody figure and see the result: About 2,500 

 hills to the acre ( say 2,000 to the acre), about 25 plants to the hill, 

 making 50,000 plants to the acre. Each of these plants will give one 

 large berry per day for 20 days (say 10 days), making 50,000 berries 

 per day, 25 large berries per box, say 50 berries per box. This gives 

 1,000 boxes daily, or 40 crates for 10 days, or 400 crates for 10 days' 

 picking from one acre, net $1 per crate, $400. 



What is the use to plant 1,000 acres, as Sarcoxie has done, to re- 

 alize $100,000 and then get beat in prices in all the markets by all the 

 small growers. 



Just plant 250 acres, as Exeter has done, and make $400 per acre 

 and get the $100,000 and be at the top of the market, with customers 

 everywhere wanting our berries. 



G. G. James, Exeter, Mo. 



STRAWBERRIES. 



I have been growing berries in a small way for several years. 

 Last spring I planted about one acre, or perhaps a little less, about 

 half Bubachs and Haveland, with Bedarwood, Downing and Jacks for 

 perfect bloom. Now, as I have always held that a perfect mechanical 

 condition of the soil was better than much manure, I cultivated them 

 until I almost felt like the soil was good to eat. 



This land had been in cultivation 30 years, and to my certain 

 knowledge has never had one shovelful of any kind of manure put on 

 it, or has it ever been in grass. I made my mated rows about 18 

 inches wide and covered them lightly with straw about a week before 

 Christmas. Most of them came through the straw without moving it. 

 The Haverlands showed the most excessive case of over-bearing that 

 I have ever seen, running from 25 to 150 to the plant, so I 

 thought they would be a failure sure; but when the bloom was at its 

 best we had three or four of the finest days for fertilizing I have ever 

 seen ; so they set the most perfect crop of fruit I have ever seen; so 

 I went to work and mulched a part of them with short straw and 

 chaff from an old stack near by. Result, as far as mulched, they per- 

 fected almost every berry, and second and third pick ran about 30 to 

 the box, some of them 14 to the box and many 17 to 20. Now, if I 

 ever live to have another patch I will mulch them if I have to go 20 

 miles after material to do it with. 



Now, don't some one jump at a conclusion and mulch any kind of 

 land too early and cause the loss of his crop, for we had a rain here 

 that the water was 5 inches deep on part of my patch after the first 



