40 ANNUAL REPORT. 



earliest that I had. It seems to me that Mr. Pearce"s direction for 

 covering after the first snow falls hardly answers every } ear; some- 

 times we don't get snow until in January. We have to cover right 

 away after the first freeze to amount to anything. 



Mr. Pearce. I am inclined to think it is a mistake to put on the cover- 

 ing too early in the season, before the leaves are killed to the ground. 

 From tests I have made with mulching T have found my best success 

 has been with mulching on the snow in the middle of winter, or say 

 in January. With strawberries the injury is not done in the fore part 

 of winter but in the spring; I speak from experience and observation. 

 I know of perhaps twenty beds of strawberries where the plants were 

 completely killed by mulching last fall. The snow came on top of 

 them and smothered them. If you wish you can mulch in the fall, if 

 careful not to smother the plants. 



Mr J. C. Kramer. Mr. President and gentlemen: I would like to 

 ask the question. What do we understand about this fertilizing the 

 strawberry ? Some say there is nothing of it. We cannot make 

 them produce fruit by using manure or by working, but the other we 

 can do; for example I have a seedling here that I have grown for sev- 

 eral years. It is a seedling of the Wilson. I raised it for three years 

 and didn't get any fruit although it was always full of blossoms. I 

 didn't know anything about the habits of the plant, but finally got a 

 catalogue from the east from a gardener, and there was a full explana- 

 tion given of the difference in the blossoms. I examined my plants 

 and I could see the difference. I found my seedling was a pistilate 

 variety. So I went to another bed where I had what we call the Iowa 

 King which has a full blossom. I took some of those plants and set 

 them out with the seedlings, and I had the John Hart seedling on the 

 other side; as a result I took twelve quarts of berries from a square 

 rod at the first picking. Before this I had nothing but blossoms for 

 three years. I had been fooled for three years. So I made me an 

 implement out of an old cross-cut saw to transplant with, and I go to 

 a row of full blossom plants and set one from them every eight feet; 

 I take the plants up with that machine and set them right in and 

 don't disturb the roots. I set the plants out in this way and got a 

 crop. After that 1 took the Glendale and mixed them among a dozen 

 kinds of seedlings and the fruit showed the effects and the berries 

 were of the shape of the Glendale. We cannot understand it but 

 there is a Higher Power above that gives us the blessing. 

 Mr. Harris. Did you pick (jlendales from the seedlings ? 



