PROCEEDINGS OF THE SUMMER MEETING. 37 



ones might have been. Bisel set any amount of fruit. I never saw 

 anything set fuller. I had them on good ground. I had a great many 

 imperfect, small berries on Bisel. 



Mr. Morrill: I think if I had an abundance of well-rotted manure I 

 would not go to fertilizers for strawberries. I would use wood ashes 

 and fine bone. At one time I fitted four rows, nine rods long, to see what 

 I could do with commercial fertilizers upon land naturall}' good. I made 

 furrows with a double mould-board plow. 1 strewed Mapes' commercial 

 fertilizer in the bottom of that furrow. Then I took a spring-tooth culti- 

 vator and worked it thoroughly in. Then I put the soil back, and put on 

 five hundred pounds to the acre on top of that. This was a space eighteen 

 inches wide. This makes a thousand pounds to the acre. Then I set 

 half of that to Crescent strawberries and the other half to Sharp- 

 less. The second year Sharpless was largely killed by frost. Crescent 

 pulled through in good shape. As figured out, the sales would have 

 amounted to over |800 per acre. The ordinary price for berries was 

 seventy-five cents to |1.25 per case. These sold for |2. It was the dif- 

 ference in the quality of the fruit. At another time I took a few rows of 

 Warfield. I took a thousand pounds of raw bone and strewed them over 

 the surface, and we spread ashes at the rate of one hundred bushels to 

 the acre. But those four rows of Warfields twenty rods long netted suf- 

 ficient to have run over $700 to the acre, and it was not an exceptionally 

 high-price year. It was a year of plenty. I have done just as well with 

 thoroughly rotted manure. But it is my experience that no man can tell 

 what the commercial fertilizer is going to do. This soil was a fine sand 

 and loam mixture, soil that produced on the average twenty-five bushels 

 of wheat to the acre. 



Mr. Brown: The main reason why we underrate the value of the com- 

 mercial fertilizer is on account of the drought. With good weather it 

 is undoubtedly a good thing. With my soil you might as well throw on a 

 lot of sand. It seems only to aid in burning it up. Mine is clay soil. 

 There is a great difference in soils about the amount of heat they will ab- 

 sorb. 



Mr. McCallem : I want to indorse what Mr. Morrill has said in regard 

 to fertilizers. Strawberries do not want too much nitrogen. I have 

 kept my teams busy drawing manure. Now, I am satisfied that the two 

 chief ingredients which are usually deficient are potash and phosphoric 

 acid. I do not think we need so much nitrogen as we do for most any 

 other crop. You put commercial fertilizer on your ground, and not get 

 a rain until fall, and you will get no results from it. I am satisfied that 

 if growers will spend a little more money in ground bone and potash they 

 will get better results from it. I am just as careful about adjusting my 

 cultivators in cultivating as I am about adjusting a clock. If you will 

 stir your ground and keep it cultivated about three inches deep, the roots 

 will strike deeper. They will not do that unless the soil is stirred. They 

 must have air. If the plants do not get it the crops are in bad shape. I 

 believe that proper cultivation is all right, but the great difficulty is, you 

 take these wide cultivators such as we used to use and bad results 

 follow. They tear the roots all to pieces, and they have no time to estab- 

 lish themselves. That is, assuming you do not mulch heavily. I believe 

 that proper cultivation is the thing in the spring. 



