PREPARATION OF SOIL FOR PLANTING STRAWBERRIES. 141 



Mr. Perry: When should those ashes be spread on the 

 strawberry beds? 



Mr. Bonniwell: Early in the spring. 



Pres. Underwood: Do you use unleached or leached ashes? 



Mrs. Bonniwell: Sometimes they are leached and some- 

 times they are unleached. 



Pres. Underwood: I suppose you prefer to have them un- 

 leached? 



Mrs. Bonniwell: Yes, I prefer them unleached; of course, 

 they get leached on the ground. 



Mr. Danforth: Father has been in the habit of putting about 

 a pint of ashes at each plant about a week or two after setting 

 out the plants. 1 think heretofore great injury has been done 

 to the strawberry crop by puttitig on too much manure. 



Mrs. Bonniwell: Ashes are good for currant bushes too. 



Mrs. Kennedy: Mrs. Bonniwell will beat any one in our 

 part of the country farming. That is one thing in favor of the 

 ashes. (Laughter). 



Dr. M. M. Frisselle: I can testify to Mrs. Boauiwell's g'ood farm- 

 ing. She has a good farm and g-ood land. I wish to emphasize her 

 idea in regard to the use of ashes. I think, of all the fertilizers we 

 are able to secure nothing is better than wood ashes, unleached at 

 that, and when my friend, Mr. Busse, spoke of new land produ- 

 cing the best strawberries I thought it could be explained by 

 the fact that new land possesses more potash than land that has 

 borne crops. That is really the cause, that new land contains more 

 potash, and he gets a good crop. I think another point that should 

 be brought out, and probably will be, is that we need moisture; we 

 cannot raise strawberries very well without moisture. We cannot 

 get fruit, even if the blossoms have set fruit, unless we have plenty 

 of moisture. For that reason I think a cool north slope for plant- 

 ing the strawberry bed is the best, because it is less likely to dry 

 out, and I subscribe to Mr. Pearce's idea that a good place for the 

 strawberry bed is where the snow lies all the winter and where the 

 wind does not blow off the mulch and dry out the soil. I think any 

 land that will raise a good corp of corn will raise a good crop of 

 strawberries, and, as I said before, I think the best fertilizer is wood 

 ashes. I secure all the wood ashes I can find. I ha^e about ten 

 loads of wood ashes piled up now ready to put on. 



Mr. Smith: I would like to have Mr. Kellogg tell ua something 

 about new land for strawberries. 



Mr. G. J. Kellogg: Gentlemen, I had twenty-one acres of new 

 forest land that had never been planted since Adam was there. 

 After clearing one and three-fourths acres of it, I planted nineteen 

 varieties of strawberries after the first breaking. The next year was 

 a very fine strawberry year, and those nineteen varieties were not 

 worth a cent, while across the street land that had been worked 



