348 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Mr. Thayer: Yes, I do. 



Mr. Wedge: Is your soil sandy, as it is generally around 

 Sparta? 



Mr. Thayer: My soil is a sandy loam, with portions of it a 

 clayey subsoil. 



Mr. Elliot: You do not give them any extra attention at 

 the time they are running out? 



Mr. Thayer: No extra attention, no. I give my fruit extra 

 attention to a certain extent. I keep a cultivator running 

 through it as many as fifteen or twenty times a season. 



Mr. Elliot: I mean, do you go over them and keep soil on 

 the runners to make them take root? 



Mr. Thayer: No more than the natural cultivation, no. 



Mr. Sampson: I would like to ask Mr. Thayer and others 

 who are in the strawberry business if it makes any difference 

 with the fruit of the pistillate varieties about the variety of the 

 fertilizing plant; whether a solid variety of fertilizing plant 

 will make a firmer fruit of the pistillate varieties or not; 

 whether that combination gives us a better fruit, the same as 

 the Crescent; whether the Wilson will make a firmer berry on 

 the Crescent vine than some other berry which is not as firm 

 as the Wilson? 



Mr. Thayer: I do not feel able to answer that question, and 

 I will refer you to Professor Green. I suppose it is an estab- 

 lished fact that certain fertilizers will make a difference in the 

 quality of the fruit. 



Mr. Sampson: I mean as to one plant fertilizing another. 



Professor Green: The fact of the matter is, it don't amount 

 to very much, and I suspect Mr. Sampson knows that, too. As 

 a scientific fact it is true, that there is some little effect pro- 

 duced on the part we eat, due to fertilization of the seed, but 

 not more than the cob of the corn when it is fertilized with a 

 different variety, as the Black Mexican corn. You must re- 

 member that the soft part of the strawberry is the cob, and 

 you eat the seeds from necessity. In the corn you throw away 

 the cob. In the strawberry the juicy part is the cob, the seeds 

 are on the outside, and the cob is soft and juicy, and so we eat 

 it; while we eat the corn, that is, the grains on the outside, 

 throwing away the cob. There is no more effect upon the 

 receptacle of the strawberry than there is upon the cob of the 

 corn. 



Mr. Plants: Some years ago I had the Crescent fertilized 

 with the James Vick, and, in picking the James Vick, the rows 



