GROWING STRAWBERRIES FOR HOME USE AND MARKET. 463 



Mr. R. H. Pendergast : I have always made it a practice to use 

 ashes freely on strawberries, and another thing I use is salt. An 

 orchard and everything in plant life will be benefited by the use of 

 ashes. I never like to cover my strawberries until the ground is 

 thoroughly frozen. My experience is that I get the covering too 

 deep if there is a good deal of snow, but I am so situated that I 

 tan use evergreen boughs, and I keep my plants back by covering 

 them with evergreens. I find that gives me a later crop, which pays 

 better. 



Mr. Kellogg (Wis.) : How much salt do you use? 



Mr. Pendergast: Not a great deal. I scatter it over the vines 

 two or three times during the season. 



Mr. Kellogg : Say about two quarts to the rod ? 



Mr. Pendergast : That would not be too much. 



Mr. Baldwin : I have had a little experience along that line. 

 The rule is to use loo bushels of hardwood ashes to the acre. If 

 you use soft wood ashes or leached ashes you will have to use 

 twice as much. Each one has to study the requirements of his own 

 soil. If you had a timber soil you would naturally have plenty of 

 ashes ; there is a good deal in that kind of soil. In every soil that 

 is lacking in potash you get good results from the use of ashes. If 

 you have a soil where plants are inclined to make too much growth 

 you will find it better to use' ashes instead of manure ; then you will 

 have it less fertile and get a good deal better fruit. 



Mrs. Moore : What time do you put on the ashes ? 



Mr. Baldwin : In tUe spring of the year. I scatter them thor- 

 oughly and then harrow them in. It is used just like a. commercial 

 fertilizer. 



Mr. J. O. Weld : I want to add my experience on this subject, 

 which should be the experience of every man having a little patch 

 of strawberries. Most of my neighbors do not want to bother with 

 strawberries. They believe it does not pay, and they have a sort 

 of an idea that it is a work for women anyway. They plow a little 

 patch around the house and let the women take care of it entirely ; 

 they think anything of that kind is too small for them to bother with. 

 I had a little patch for several years about 50x55 feet, or a little over 

 three rods square. Last spring it became pretty weedy ; I did not 

 know what to do with it. Finally I went to work at it on my knees 

 to dig the grass out with a little trowel. While I was at work one 

 of my neighbors came along and said, "Why do you want to bothef 

 with that; why don't you plow it up? It will never amount to any- 

 thing." I said I would try it anyway and see whether or not it 

 would pay. I got it cleaned, and when it came to the fruiting sea- 

 son we kept an accurate account of the berries we raised on that 

 patch. There were eleven in the family ; we had all we wanted to 

 eat twice a day for a month ; Mrs. Weld canned forty quarts, and 

 in addition I sold $28.60 worth of berries from that little patch. 

 That shows that it pays. I live at Lake Minnetonka, where we have 

 a good market for our fruit, but at any rate it paid me to spend 

 two days in that little patch. 



Mr. Gardner: What varieties did vou have? 



