40 ANNUAL REPORT 



A member. Do you do that when you are setting the plants, or 

 after they are set? 



Mr. Pearce. After they are set. 



A member. How close do you plant when you plant in the fall? 



Mr. Pearce. I plant six inches apart. 



A member. How far between the rows? 



Mr. Pearce. Twenty inches. 



President Elliot. Now, there is the point. This will do for 

 people who are only doing it in an amateur way, but for a man who 

 is planting out ten or fifteen acres of berries it will be pretty ex- 

 pensive; and I think the method of planting in the spring is pre- 

 ferable. 



I have had considerable experience in handling small fruit, and 

 the less time that you handle the plant and get a profit from it the 

 more profit you are going to get. If you plant in the fall you only 

 get fruit from that immediate plant and not from the runners after 

 they are set. Of course you will get very nice fruit; that is all 

 right, but the question is, can you grow fruit to be put on the 

 market to compete with southern planters. 



Mr. Pearce. I wish to add a little to that. You must bear in 

 mind that when you plant in the spring you put them a foot one 

 way and three feet the other way. I put three plants where you 

 put one. I put two rows where you have one. Well, now, I am 

 going to get more berries from one acre than you are off five acres. 

 There is the difference. I set out five plants in the fall when you 

 set out one in the spring; my plants are always free from disease 

 when I set them out in the fall. If you set plants the middle of 

 July you will have runners out two feet iu all directions, and you 

 will have a perfect matted row by fall, just as if they had been set 

 in the spring. As I said in that paper, it is my favorite way, and 

 I think it the most profitable method. 



President Elliot. That is the point we want to get at, to pro- 

 duce the fruit cheapest and put it on the market at the best profit. 

 Prof. Green. Mr. President. I tried this method of Mr. Pearce's 

 as long ago as 1882. Peter Henderson had recommended it some 

 years previous. I noticed that except under very high culture I 

 did not get good results. In Eastern Massachusetts they have tried 

 it a good deal for the simple reason that Peter Henderson recom- 

 mended it. It is not much used now. When I worked there, we 

 fruited our strawberry beds one year, but of late years the} 7 have 

 been running strawberry beds about three years, and most of the 

 growers consider it the best thing to do, if the beds are healthy. 

 Mr. Pearce. Wouldn't it be safer, in order to eradicate fungus, 



