382 MISSOURI STATE HORTICULTRAL SOCIETY. 



LATE AND EARLY CULTIVATION OF THE STAWBERRY. 



The strawberry stands next to the apple in a money point of view, 

 and is adapted to a much wider territory. Probably no fruit is so uni- 

 versaly grown as the strawberry. I doubt if any fruit is susceptible of 

 greater improvement, at all events none has been improved so much 

 within the last quarter of the nineteenth century. And yet horticul- 

 turists have not obtained their ideal strawberry, new varieties are com- 

 ing forward for trial all the time and on every hand. 



The cultivation of the strawberry is a matter that has and does em- 

 ploy the best thought in the horticultural field and has done so for many 

 years, and yet no one method is acknowledged and accepted by all. 

 I am of the opinion that much of the various theories grow out of the 

 variation of climate soil and the conditions surrounding- the cultivator, 

 and I have no doubt but my treatment of the strawberry out of irregu- 

 lar conditions is why I am asked for this paper. 



Cultivators need not be alarmed or afraid that the strawberry is 

 going to be destroyed if one does step out of the usual methods of 

 cultivation of the plant, for it is one of the very hardiest and will stand 

 almost untold abuse and live and bear some fruit ; on the other hand, it 

 will, to my certain knowledge, bear as mutch deep plowing and rough 

 hoeing and harrowing as any plant cultivated, and grow and thrive 

 under it as much and give fruit to correspond. 



I have no pet theory to offer to this society. I have had some 

 experience, however, that might be suggestive to some one. Straw- 

 berry beds often become so foul with weeds or grasses from manure 

 or otherwise, or so thickly matted that the fruit is small and unsaleable, 

 so that it become nescessary to plow up the whole plat to clean the 

 ground, or renew the too thickly matted bed by re-setting, thereby 

 losing one crop. 



The experience I allude to is this : In the spring of '84 I set a 

 plat of ground to strawberries and cultivated well up to August, after 

 which they run and pretty well covered the ground, the land not be- 

 ing manured. During the winter of '85 I mulched well with well rotted 

 manure. In the spring I picked a good crop of nice berries, but by 

 the time the berries were off, the ground was taken by red and white 

 clover, blue grass and timothy. To let it stand the next crop would 

 have been meadow, so I mowed it to keep grass from seeding, but did 

 not begin cultivation until about the 15th of July. I ought to have done 



