258 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



believe now that if I had burned them over thorpug-hly this fall 

 they would have come out fifty per cent better. 



Mr. Kellogg: How did that five acre bed prove this year? 



Pres. Underwood: We did not have more than half a crop. They 

 blossomed perfectlj^, but I soon saw that the blossoms began to 

 fade awa3^ Some of them would form little berries, and then they 

 would coinmence to get gnarly, and when I came to examine them I 

 found the roots were black. I think it was caused by winter drouth. 



Mr. D. F. Akin: Is it not the ashes that were left from the burning 

 straw that fertilizes them? 



Pres. Underwood: 1 imagine that had a good effect on them. 



Mr. Akin: I think it is that which produced the effect, besides 

 killing the weeds. Just put on the ashes and your strawberry bed 

 will be good. 



Pres. Underwood: Perhaps that is all there is to it, and j'ou could 

 get a good bed cheap. 



Mr. C. L.Smith: That is not all there is to it by a long ways. It is 

 sixteen years since I began doing that. I think I labored with Mr. 

 Danforth a good many days before he could get his courage up to 

 try it, although I knew what it was worth. I am willing to admit — 

 I am lazj'^ enough to admit — that it was the easiest waj' to take care 

 of the strawberry bed. Mr. Danforth is one of a hundred, I might 

 say, whom I have talked into trying this method of treating the 

 strawberry beds, and I do not know of anybody ever trying it who 

 has regretted it. The only failure I ever knew was where a heavy 

 mulching of flax straw had been put on the bed. It would kill out the 

 plants wherever one of those thick bunches came. The using 

 of the hay tedder and stirring up this mulching is the main point to 

 consider. If the straw is light and dry so it will not make a long 

 and strong fire it is all right, and is by far the easiest way to get rid 

 of foul stuff. There is an advantage of having ashes there, there ia 

 no mistake about that, and I am glad to hear what Mr. Converse said 

 about top-dressing with well rotted manure. That is all right, but 

 it does not want to be a luanure mixed with red top, blue grass and 

 timothy seed, becaixse if it is you are liable to have your strawberry 

 beds seeded with grass seed that will bother you next summer. I 

 would recommend a top dressing of stable manure, not too heavy, 

 eight to ten loads to the acre, and if j'ou have got some ashes in ad- 

 dition to the mulch put them on. It is the easiest way and the 

 cheapest to take care of a strawberry bed. 



Mr. Sargent: I had a little experience last year with flax straw. I 

 put it over the rows and then left a heavy mulching between the 

 rows and burned it over. 



Pres. Underwood: It burned all the plants up? 



Mr. Sargent: It burned over all the rows, but it would not burn it 

 up clean. Flax makes too hot a fire to put over plants. 



Mr. W. H. Putnam: I would like to ask if he ever burned it over 

 in the spring. A neighbor of mine burued*his bed over in the spring 

 one year, and it was the best bed he ever had. 



Pres. Underwood: If you burn the bed over in the fall 3'ou get a 

 good crop, and if you burn the same bed over in the spring it should 

 be good. If one burning is good, two ought to be better. (Laughter.) 



Mr. Kellogg: Why not burn it over in the winter and save mulch- 

 ing? (Laughter.) 



