GROWING STRAWBERRIES AND STRAWBERRY PLANTS. 333 



GROWING STRAWBERRIES AND STRAWBERY 



PLANTS. 



B. T. HOYT, ST. PAUL. 



Growing strawberries is one business and growing plants 

 another. I will try to touch on both. 



Those of you who grow or have grown strawberries know how 

 nice it is to see the large, luscious fruit ripening on the vines. To 

 pick and eat one's own berries or have a fresh dish of berries is way 

 ahead of shop worn stock, which sometimes has begun to sprout. 



It seems strange that more people do not grow their own ber- 

 ries, and especially the farmers. No wonder there has been such a 

 rush of young folks from the country to the cities. There are hun- 

 dreds of farms without a sign of a fruit tree or bush. But these 

 conditions are bound to change. People are beginning to open their 

 eyes to the fact that Minnesota will and can grow as good fruit as 

 any state, and better than a great many 



Perhaps one of the greatest drawbacks to the farmers has been 

 that, either through neglect or poor plant stock, they have failed 

 and given up trying to grow fruit. Too often plants from old fruit- 

 ing beds are used for planting. Some make a specialty of buying 

 up old strawberry beds, which are exhausted, to send out plants 

 from. This class of men can supply any named variety from thesp 

 old beds. After trying these plants no wonder people give up. 



Growing strawberries is not so difficult as some imagine, if the 

 person starts right, then furnishes the proper conditions. To get the 

 very best results one should first join the Horticultural Society, 

 which only costs $1.00. Mr. Latham will take your money. Then 

 get the best plants obtainable from newly set beds, one year old ; set 

 them in good soil which has been well prepared or any good garden 

 land ; then give them good cultivation, pinch blossoms off and keep 

 weeds down. The better care the plants receive the better returns 

 one can expect. Don't think that to stick plants into the ground is 

 all there is to berry growing. There are many good varieties of 

 strawberries and many poor ones, but each person has his favorite. 

 One of our veteran strawberry growers said that it did not matter 

 so much about the variety as it did the man that grew them. 



There are several systems of growing berries for fruit, but in 

 dry seasons if plants are growing in hedge rows or hills we find 

 that they withstand the drouth much better than in the matted row. 



Most people allow the plants to mat too thickly, and when the 

 drought strikes them the plants sap one another, and the berries 

 dry up for lack of moisture. If plants are set eighteen to twenty- 

 four inches apart in the row, let two runners from each plant fill up 



