igO MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL. SOCIETY. 



They were all covered pretty heavily, and I have never heard of 

 such a thing as strawberries freezing when they had the proper pro- 

 tection. 



Mr. J. M. Underwood: Mr. Bracketfis partly correct, but he 

 does not get down to the bottom of it. The winter perhaps was a 

 contributing cause, but the fundamental trouble was the lack of 

 moisture. It is drouth, in other words. The covering will not do 

 any good if the roots and the ground are dry. I have had large ex- 

 perience in that and lost valuable strawberry plants, and I am satis- 

 fied it was entirely due to lack of moisture in late fall and winter. 

 Of course the roots are injured, and the reason they are injured 

 is because they are dry. I cannot positively say from actual ex- 

 perience, but I believe if the plants had been irrigated and the beds 

 filled with moisture it would have prevented the killing. I believe 

 if they had plenty of moisture and then the plants had been proper- 

 ly covered there would have been no root-killing, and that root- 

 killing, or whatever you may please to call it, was the cause of 

 the plants dying and was the reason why the fruit did not develop 

 Vv^hen the plants came into bearing. 1 lost five acres of straw- 

 berries in a similar way. It was as fine a five acre piece of straw- 

 berries as ever I saw. It was the first year of fruiting, and they 

 came into bearing so that' they developed berries from one-eighth 

 to one-fourth of an inch in diameter, and the blossoms in the bed 

 were so profuse that I have never seen anything like it, but they 

 commenced to dwindle away, and our crop was an entire failure. 

 I think it was entirely due to a lack of moisture in the ground. 



Mr. Elliot : I can cite an analagous case. Frequently our ap- 

 ple trees bloom very profusely after a hard winter. It is the last 

 effort of nature to produce fruit, and it is the same with the straw- 

 berry as it is with the apple. 



The Chairman: Mr. Westman says where the vines were 

 rather neglected he had no winter-killing. 



Mr. Elliot: The reason was that he had a mulch there that 

 retained the moisture. That is the way I look at that matter, and 

 I think some of you may have found that out by your own exper- 

 ience. If you will look back you will recollect that we had a very 

 dry time last fall (1905) just before the winter set in, and the 

 strawberry growers may anticipate a good crop next year because 

 the ground is filled with moisture, which will insure a good pro- 

 duction. 



Prof. N. E. Hansen (S. D.) : I have a little bit of experience 

 to offer along this line. It is not my own experience, but it oc- 

 curred only twenty-six miles southwest of where I am located. 

 It was on the place of Henry Hess, at Flandreau, S. D. He raised 

 five acres of strawberries, and he had excellent success follow 

 the use of a gasoline engine. He is so situated he can pump the 

 water from a creek at a very slight expense, and he has always 

 had good success with his berries. He gives them a good soaking 

 in the fall before winter set's in, and that means success every 

 time. That is about all there is to growing strawberries, that and 



