STATE HORTICULTUEAL SOCIETY. 387 



merit. If oue liundred plates of the best varieties were placed 

 before you with plenty of sugar and cream, with a good appetite 

 and a healthy stomach, you would pronounce them all good. It 

 is not the berries, as a general rule, possessing the best qualities 

 that meet a ready sale. Freshness, size, color and form are what 

 sell berries. Every market grower should become acquainted 

 with all the best varieties, and then select the hardiest, most 

 j)roliiic, high colored, and those of good form and large. In 

 making selections, due attention must be paid to the distance you 

 are from the market. If near market and the fruit can be sold 

 at once, or in a few hours, soft varieties can be selected. But if 

 at a distance from market, varieties of a firmer texture must be 

 selected. Every grower should select both pistilate and herma- 

 phrodite varieties. If this be done with care and knowledge, 

 color, form, size, and firmness can be improved. For sandy, 

 loose soil, near market, the Crescent seedling and Downer's Pro- 

 lific would be good selections. The size, color and form of the 

 fruit of both varieties are good and the crop would improve 

 the fruit on the Crescent. For heavy soil, Wilson, Glendale and 

 Seth Boyden hermaphrodite, Crescent seedling, Windsor Chief, 

 and Manchester pistillates. 



The fruit of all these varieties is large and firm and color good. 

 I would arrange on the ground as follows: Setting from a foot 

 to fifteen inches one way, and thirty-two inches the other. I 

 would plant two-thirds of my ground to Wilson, Glendale and 

 Crescent seedling, in the following order: First row, Crescent 

 seedling, next row Wilson, next two rows, Crescent seedling, 

 next row, Glendale, and so on, till two-thirds of the ground is 

 planted, closing with oue row of Crescent; then oue row Wind- 

 sor Chief, then a row of Glendale, then two rows Windsor Chief, 

 and so on, till one-half the remaining third is planted, stopping 

 with one row of Windsor Chief; then one row of Manchester, 

 then a row of Seth Boyden, then two rows of Manchester, and 

 so on till the remaining half third is planted. The last two va- 

 rieties will make fancy berries. 



Level ground, as far as possible, should be selected for a straw- 

 berry bed, not subject to wash or overflow. The plants, the first 

 year they are set out, should be thoroughly cultivated with a 

 light cultivator and kept clear. As soon as the plants begin to 

 vine, run the cultivator but one way and carry the runner length- 

 wise on the rows and let them form thick, matted rows, and 

 keep, by the use of the cultivator, an open space of a foot or fif- 



