140 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



brought out. I know of one of the largest growers of straw- 

 berries in the state who gave a great deal of time and labor to 

 preparation of the soil, so much so that he failed to get any 

 strawberries. I want to know if any here have prepared their 

 soil so well that they did not get any strawberries? 



Mrs. Annie Bonniwell: I tried that. Our ground is very 

 rich and loose, so much so that anywhere you can kick it up 

 with your feet just like ashes, and it is a foot deep in many 

 places. I thought that was not good enough, so I took a lot 

 of fine manure, may be three tons to the acre, and I thought I 

 was going to have a grand strawberry bed. I set out my 

 plants and they grew and covered the ground, but I never saw 

 a strawberry. I asked a good many why I did not get any 

 berries, and they told me I had made my ground too rich — and 

 they have never fruited. I took up my plants and set them 

 further away and put ashes in; I fertilized them with ashes, 

 and there 1 gathered the fruit, sometimes two or three hund- 

 red quarts in a morning. Where I had the soil better prepared, 

 I got nothing. 



Mr. C. L. Smith: That is the point; they used wood ashes 

 on this other land. My experience is that I have never found 

 anything in the way of a fertilizer for strawberries that is 

 equal to wood ashes; no matter what the soil is, wood ashes is 

 the best thing you can put on your strawberry bed. You 

 should put it between the rows, sow the ashes in between the 

 row. I have done that, and it was a grand discovery. I do 

 not know whether any one else has tried it; scatter them right 

 in the middle of the row. 



Mr. A. H. Brackett: I would like to emphasize Mr. Smith's 

 idea about putting on ashes. I have my men go out with cans 

 gathering up ashes, and I put them on my strawberry beds. 



Mrs. Annie Bonniwell: I keep my teams at work hauling 

 ashes, and I have drawn a good many loads of ashes on all my 

 fruit, apples, raspberries and all other kinds. Where I sow 

 ashes, I get the best crop. 



Pres. Underwood: Is your soil a black loam with a clay sub- 

 soil? 



Mrs. Bonniwell: Yes, it is a clay subsoil. 



Pres. Underwood: What amount of ashes do you put on? 



Mrs. Bonniwell: I have two or three acres in fruit, and I 

 put on four or five tons. When I do not need the ashes in the 

 garden, I put them in the grain field. 



