BUD N'ARIATrON IN THE STRAWBERRY. 171 



Strawberry growers very generally practice what is known as the wide 

 matted row, the plants being thrown around on the edge of the row by 

 the cultivator so that sunshine is shut out from the crowns, and for renew- 

 ing their beds it is a universal custom to take the plants which form in 

 the path or alley late in September and October, giving them no adequate 

 time to perfect their buds, and thus the vegetative part of the plant was 

 stimulated and the fruit-producing organism repressed so that heav> 

 manuring and tillage resulted in producing excessive runners and foliage 

 without a corresponding increase in fruit. 



For my fruiting fields I have for years grown all my plants from ideal 

 or perfect specimens found here and there in the field, beginning the 

 search for them in the growing season, and those most promising — showing 

 large fruit crowns and healthy foliage — were staked and numbered and the 

 follow'ing spring restricted by removing half the blossom buds to prevent 

 pollen exhaustion. After fruit had set, only two berries on each fruit 

 stem were allowed to ripen so that the form, texture, flavor and color of 

 the berries might be determined. Each plant was scaled on the basis of 

 one to ten, and the one showing the greatest number of points of excel- 

 lence was given the "blue ribbon" and became the mother of all the futurt 

 plants of that variety on the farm. 



The runners were potted and transferred to special beds, where the^ 

 were given room for plenty of air and sunshine to further develop and 

 stimulate their fruit-producing organism, and the following spring all new 

 beds were stocked with these plants. 



To determine if results justified this process of plant-growing, I sei 

 plants from a neighboring plantation grown after the general plan of fruit 

 growers, taking "alley plants" from the edges of the matted row, setting 

 them in alternate rows with those thoroughbred as above stated, giving 

 all the most thorough tillage and confining them to hills and hedge-row. 

 There was a wide difference in the quality and quantity of the berries 

 picked from the two classes of plants. As in the case of the first experi- 

 ments, the selected plants gave at the rate of from three to five hundred 

 bushels per acre, while from the plants of the second grade scarcely a 

 hundred bushels were secured. 



It has been estimated that the strawberry production in the United 

 States has now reached the enormous sum of ninety million dollars in 

 reasonably favorable years. The demand is governed by quality or the 

 pleasure experienced in eating the fruit, and so if growers can be induced 

 to adopt the better methods of breeding their plants and giving them the 

 benefit of modern research in tillage and fertilizing, the question of mar- 

 kets would be solved by greatly increased consumption creating a demand 

 that could hardly be met at largely advanced prices. 



The berry grower is now just where the stock grower v/as fifty years 

 ago. Then stockmen talked only of breeds. If the pedigree was right, 

 any sway-backed, knock-kneed, badly developed animal would serve the 

 full purpose for breeding, but it is worthy of note that the splendid animals 

 which now grace our barnyards did not come into existence until the 

 individuality of an animal fixed its value. 



