212 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



REPORT ON STRAWBERRIES. 



The strawberry crop was a fair one and prices were higher than for 

 several years. The young plantations are in the best of condition for a good 

 crop next year. The leaf blight was very destructive to some varieties, 

 notably to the well known Captain Jack, which has been very generally 

 a failure from this disease. Our experience at the experiment station 

 goes to show that while it is possible to keep most varieties healthy by. 

 the use of Bordeaux mixture and other fungicides, yet it is much better 

 to plant varieties that resist this disease. However, the increasing difficul- 

 ty of getting satisfactory pollen producers may soon force us to* use the 

 Bordeaux mixture on these kinds. It is very certain that only healthy 

 varieties can produce paying crops of fruit, and while the health and pro- 

 ductiveness of varieties of the strawberry varies much in different loca- 

 tions, yet some varieties do remarkably well over a large area and in 

 almost any location or soil. 



The strawberries at the experiment station are on open clay land having 

 a gentle slope to the south, and are grown in the matted row system. 

 The runners are allowed to root until the row is well filled, and any 

 that start afterward are cut off. It is our practice to fruit .strawberry 

 beds a second time, if they are in good condition when the first crop is 

 gathered, and this year most varieties have proved more proliflc on the 

 old beds than on the new. In renewing old strawberry beds the following 

 plan is pursued: 



RENEWING OLD STRAWBERRY BEDS. 



As soon as may be after the crop is gathered, the bed is closely mowed 

 and all the weeds and strawberry leaves are burned. A plow is then run 

 on each side of a matted row, and all but about one foot in width of it is 

 turned under. The furrows thus made are filled with fine rotted manure 

 and the cultivator set going.* The plants remaining are then thinned 

 out with a hoe, and special pains taken to cut out all weeds and old or 

 weak plants. This leaves the old bed clean, with plenty of manure close 

 by, in which the old plants can make new roots. The plants soon send 

 up new leaves which are much healthier than they would be were the old 

 foliage allowed to remain, and if we have an ordinary season an abund- 

 ance of runners will be sent out, and by winter the old bed will look 

 nearly as vigorous as a new one. At the time of this writing we have an 

 old bed of various kinds that has borne two crops, which we cleaned up 

 in July for a third, and it is very difficult to find on it a single diseased 

 leaf among the several varieties with which it is planted, and the rows 

 are full of green, vigorous plants and runners. 



SHADING STRAWBERRY BEDS. 



Many complaints have reached us of the difficulty of securing a good 

 crop of strawberries in exposed places on the prairies, even when the plants 

 had grown well and both staminate and pistillate kinds were planted. 

 This trouble is probably due to the pollen being too much dissipated by 

 the wind, and, perhaps, also, to the drying up of the fruit after it is set by 

 the hot sun and winds. With the object of finding a remedy for this 

 trouble some preliminary experiments have been undertaken, in one of 



*We sometimes find it necessary to take out all but the two outside cultivator 

 teeth if the mulch is very thick. 



