STATE HORTICULTUEAL SOCIETY. 457 



STEAWBEERIES IX ILLINOIS. 



Mr. Parker Earle. of Cobden, 111., the strawberry king of that 

 State, in writing to the secretary of the Michigan Horticultnral 

 Society, gives his method of culture in the following terse man- 

 ner: 



'' Here is how we do it. We plant in the spring, and largely 

 of Crescents, getting three rows of them to one of some fertil- 

 izing variety, as Sharpless or Sucker State. We cultivate clean 

 all summer, in matted rows, keeping the rows entirely distinct- 

 We mulch in the late autumn with wheat straw, covering 

 the middles heavily and the rows lightly. Xever take it ofi'. 

 Next: The tarnished plant bug ruins nearly ninety per cent of 

 all varieties except Crescent, and sometimes half of them. We 

 pick every daj^ — seven days in the week. It is wicked to work 

 so hard, but we can not harvest strawberries for shipment long- 

 distances without doing just this thing. We use quart boxes five 

 inches square by two and a half inches deep, and twenty-four- 

 quart crates. We don't use the Michigan box, which is nearly 

 as deep as it is wide, and looks small and carries badly, and 

 would not use them if furnished free. We don't use sixteen- 

 quart cases, which are as high as wide, and which no fellow ev^er 

 knows or cares how to set down, bottom, side, or top up. We 

 don't use this package, and I wish you Michigan people would 

 abandon such an ill-looking, bad package. Your berries would 

 bring more money in our style of package and it costs no more. 

 Finally, we ship in refrigerator cars, the berries being first care- 

 fully cooled off, and we use Tiffany cars, because they carry the 

 ice overhead, where it ought to be. We scatter widely, and we 

 don't make as much money as we want to, for there are too 

 many strawberries for profit to the grower.*' 



HOW TO EAT STRAWBERRIES. 

 By Chas. A. G-reene, Rochester, N. Y. 



The following directions on this topic are given by Mr. Greene, 

 who handles the "Jessie," and who doubtless knows a good 

 thing when he sees it: 



First catch your strawberry. Don't catch her in your 

 neighbor's garden while he is off fishing: don't catch her from 



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