STRAWBERRIES FOR THE FARMERS. IQI 



was a remarkably good year for berries. I laid his failure to the 

 fact that he covered his plants too heavily and did not cover early 

 enough. 



Prof. Robertson: When did he cover them? 



Mr. Strand : Late in the fall. 



Prof. Robertson : x\fter it had frozen hard ? 



Mr. Strand: I don't think it was as late as that. 



Prof. Robertson : I cover mine after everybody else gets 

 through. (Laughter.) 



Mr. Strand: I think there is a good deal in what Prof. Rob- 

 ertson says about late covering, but if you put it on too heavy it 

 will smother them out. There might be frost enough in the 

 ground to counteract that. 



Prof. Robertson: Ours are not covered yet: (Dec. 2.) maybe 

 we will not get any next year. 



Mr. Oliver Gibbs : I think it is safer for the farmer's straw- 

 berry patch to have nothing there but the bisexual varieties. He 

 can get plenty of fruit and runs no danger of having the stami- 

 nate run out. 



Mr. Thos. McCully : I think ]\Ir. Gibbs is right there; I be- 

 lieve it is better to grow the staminate varieties. In regard to 

 covering : I have always covered light, about five tons to the 

 acre. You cannot hold them back after the frost goes out. As 

 soon as the frost is out of the ground the plants will start to 

 grow, and the plants that are heavily covered will turn white ; 

 and as soon as the leaves begin to change their color your cover 

 must come off, or your berries will be injured. I have noticed, as 

 a rule, that the covering must come off as soon as the frost is out 

 of the ground. It would seem from Prof. Robertson's remarks 

 that it is a very easy matter to grow strawberries. If the aver- 

 age farmer believed that, there would be strawberries to give 

 away. The average farmer does not believe that. He must 

 take care of his larger fields first ; but if he has the experience he 

 will find nothing more profitable than strawberries rightly taken 

 care of. As to varieties, I think that is a great deal a question 

 of locality. One variety will thrive better in one vicinity than 

 in another, and we must try these things for ourselves. There 

 is such a diversity in the soils that we must find the plants adapt- 

 ed to the soils we must work with. 



Mr. S. D. Richardson: I remarked here last year that a man 

 "pays his money and takes his choice." You can hear anything in 

 this society. One man says one thing, and he is flatly contradict- 

 ed by another; but they are both right because they give their 

 experience from their own standpoints. 



Prof. Robertson : I want to defend that point of bisexual and 

 non-bisexual. We seem to be afraid that the farmer might learn 

 something. I named those five varieties for that very purpose. 

 I said plant the Splendid, Bederwood, Warfield, Lovett and 

 Crescent, and I said it simply because I want the farmer to find 

 out something about the plants. I took two boys out in the 

 patch, boys about six or seven years old. and set them to picking 



