STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 375 



[The following report was read at the Auniial Meeting on Jan- 

 uary 22, 1885, and should have appeared at page 207. — Sec] 



STEAWBERRIES. 



BY M. CUTLER. 



Felloio Members of the State Horticultural Society: 



By the request of our worthy president, I will attempt to give 

 some of my horticultural experience. 



Six years since, having read glowing accounts of the great 

 profits of small fruit culture and having seen some of the beau- 

 tiful cuts and pictures of new fruits sent out by Eastern nurserymen, 

 being disgusted with wheat- raising, I made up my mind to embark 

 in the small fruit business. So I sold a cow and invested twenty 

 dollars in plants, sending to A. M. Purdy, Palmyra, N. Y., and 

 directing them to be sent by freight. Had my orders been 

 obeyed most of them would have spoiled, but they were sent by 

 express and I had to pay ten dollars charges, a big sum to a poor 

 farmer just after grasshopper times. Afterwards I learned that 

 most of the kinds I bought were for sale at about the same price 

 near home, and most of the risk and charges saved. "Moral: 

 Buy plants near home when possible." The plants arriving in 

 a dry time many of them were set too deep; a heavy rain soon 

 followed the setting, washing the dirt over and smothering many 

 of them. What remained made a good growth of plants, and the 

 next spring the bed was white with blossoms, when a big hail 

 storm came, cutting them all to pieces and pounding them into 

 the ground, and I obtained but few berries. The fruit business 

 began to look discouraging, still I thought I would try it again. 

 So I took good care of the plants and by fall they looked well. 

 Snow coming in October, I did not have them covered, and as 

 part of them were on low land they were froze out. Part of the 

 bed being on high ground and covered with big snow banks 

 produced a big crop, so that I had enough for home use and a 

 few dollars' worth to sell. Hope began to revive and the next 

 spring I decided to set out one hundred rods more, mostly to 

 Sharpless and Crescents. I set the plants three and one-half feet 

 apart each way, and by fall they had made a rank growth, nearly 

 covering the ground. I mulched them nicely with hay, leaving 

 enough on in the sirring to keep the berries off the ground, and 



