144 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



with the soil it has caused at the present time a larger growth of clover 

 sod and soil. By this means you have saved every bit of the fertilizing 

 value of the manure and you have gro^vn more humius. If that has 

 not been done, feed up your soil during the coming season by applying 

 on it as early in the spring as possible stable manure. I am in favor 

 of early spring planting. 



Another method: You can take up the plants early, pinch off the 

 blossom stems, set in beds, let set for two or three weeks, and after these 

 plants have been set out and properly cared for, they will throw out 

 short feeding roots. Then they can be transplanted again during the 

 summer. That is not the best way, but it will do all right if you are 

 unavoidably detained because of other work. It is a good plan if you 

 are sending off for plants and they reach you fn bad condition. They 

 can be put in a bed in this way and they will not be so likely to die. 



If you have the ground fall plowed, you can begin to work it in 

 the spring, cutting with a disc and rolling. The ground for strawberries 

 should be pretty firm. Will get a better growth and the plants the 

 first year will fruit better. The ground should be worked down in good 

 condition so as to make it as firm as possible. 



I plant with a machine but I do not think there is much advantage in 

 using a transplanter except in a dry time although the work can be done 

 rapidly, setting out a row of plants as fast as a team walks along and 

 each plant is watered as it is set out. 



There are some things that we make a point in doing. We go right 

 over and pack the ground very firmly. One thing, commercial growers 

 understand and that is never to take plants from a bed which has born 

 fruit. The old strawberry bed is so exhausted of its energy by the pro- 

 duction of a large crop of fruit that the young plants are lacking in 

 vigor and vitality. This is one mistake which is the cause of more fail- 

 ures perhaps than most anything else on the part of amateurs. Select 

 your plants from beds which have never born any fruit. Another thing 

 in taking up these plants never allow them to dry out. Take up a hand- 

 ful of plants and cut off the roots. Set them all out with the roots 

 and if the roots become tangled, you should take pains to straighten 

 them out and by cutting them off to three or four inches in length, 

 these roots being near the surface, the gi'ound will start and go to feed- 

 ing the plants and they will then begin to grow all right. 



Begin cultivating the ground as soon as you set the plants. The 

 strawberry must have moisture and the ground that has been rolled 

 loses this by evaporation. Also the ground which is of a light sandy 

 nature, if it is rolled down smooth in the spring, the winds blowing 

 over it will blow soil away from some of the plants on higher ground 

 and cover others on lower ground. We avoid that by cultivating. 



The cultivation through the summer consists of hoeing often and 

 cultivating with a double cultivator. There is nothing like an earth 

 mulch. This helps to hold the moisture and also to keep down the weeds 

 especially after the runners have started. It is cheaper to go through 

 it before it gets very weedy than to let it go longer when you will be 

 obliged to go through and take out the weeds from among the runners. 



Always keep the blossoms cut off from newly set plants. The new 

 berries do not amount to anything and they are too much of a tax 

 on the vitality of the newly transplanted plants. You want to save 



