FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 91 



liked so well, but it is large when the others get small. The Gandy 

 ripens its berries all at once, and as it is loaded with seeds does not pro- 

 duce heavily. The berries do not grow large, uniformly; you will get a 

 few very large ones. The Martha is the leading large berry, but you 

 know that berries that grow to excessive size do not produce as many 

 bushels. 1 make as much perhaps off the Martha as any other. There 

 is a long list of berries which have had their reputation generally, and 

 locally. I always cultivate plants largely for the main crop, that you 

 hear of as successful everywhere, and when you get a variety adapted to 

 your soil and location, you have a good thing; I cannot tell you what it is. 



Q : Have you tried irrigation ? 



Mr. Kellogg: No, sir; except a welder and mulching heavily. 1 

 expect to put in a large irrigating plant this spring. 



Q: Do you set in the fall? 



Mr. Kellogg: Possibly you can set strawberry plants in the fall, Aug- 

 ust, and get big plants, but I cannot. I never got a big crop of berries 

 until I had first grown large plants with long roots. 



Mr. Wilson: Irrigation is becoming a necessity in this State. I had 

 an experience in irrigating, on the west coast of Michigan. The first 

 crop I planted was corn, on a strip of land three rods wide by fourteen 

 rods long, and I planted the corn eighteen inches apart and fourteen 

 inches between rows. There was a stream of water at a little distance, 

 and knowing that water would be good for plants anywhere, I dug with 

 my spade until I got the stream started to running between the rows of 

 corn, changing it from one row to another; and that corn which had 

 begun to turn brown and dry, after the water was put on it, began to get 

 green again, and grew twelve and fourteen feet high. I fed the stock all 

 they wanted, night and morning, and then had a hundred stalks left. 

 After that I put the land into strawberries and have been irrigating 

 strawberries ever since then, and it has paid. 



Instead of putting on a lot of bulky stable manure, full of grass seed, 

 I have arranged a system of troughs, with a cistern to gather up the 

 liquids, which I use on the strawberry bed, mixed with the water from 

 the stream. I have raised in that way strawberries that weighed over 

 an ounce. I always have good berries, dry or wet, and when some of my 

 neighbors wouldn't have a berry my beds would be full. I have averaged 

 on a bed, fourteen rods long by two rods wide, about thirty-two to thirty- 

 five bushels. 



Mr. Gunson : How long, under ordinary circumstances, is the stamen 

 of the strawberry receptive? 



Mr. Kellogg: I simply would say that I have never determined. I 

 have always been careful to watch the appearance of the blos- 

 soms and stamens, and to select those varieties for fertilizing which 

 opened before the pistillate varieties. The life of the pollen continues 

 for several days. I never have determined the length of time, but I am 

 careful about that. If you attempted to fertilize the Warfield with the 

 Enhance, or any of the late blooming varieties, you would find the first 

 strawberries would be buttony and deformed; you should select an early 

 variety of a perfect flower for an early pistillate variety and a late 

 variety of both kinds. Have the perfect flower a little earlier than the 

 pistillate. , 



