88 THE STRAWBERRY IN NORTH AMERICA 



orthodox method : ^ "To cultivate strawberries in beds, 

 suffering them to cover the whole of the ground with their 

 runners and young plants is a miserable method, proceed- 

 ing,from the suggestions either of idleness or of greediness, 

 and sure to lead to the defeating of the object of this later. 

 In my 'American Gardener' I have recommended the 

 forming of the strawberry plantations into beds knowing 

 that it was impossible to prevail upon the people in that 

 country- to take the pains required to cultivate them in 

 clumps." By this time there was a considerable area of 

 commercial planting in the matted row, especially near 

 Cincinnati and in Anne Arundel County, Maryland. 



The era of broadcast training. — With the introduc- 

 tion of the Wilson, in 1854, hill training was abandoned 

 under commercial culture, except in a few market gardens, 

 especially near Boston. The Wilson did not make an 

 excessive number of runners and thrived even under 

 neglect. The prevailing practice quickly passed from one 

 extreme to the other — from hill training to broadcast 

 training. Between 1854 and 1870 practically all com- 

 mercial growers made no attempt whatever to restrict 

 the number of runners or to space them. In 1867 An- 

 drew S. Fuller described this method i^ "The oldest method 

 of jfield culture in this country, and the one practiced upon 

 thousand of acres in the eastern states at the present 

 time, is to plant in rows from two and one half to three 

 feet apart, spacing the plants about one foot distant in 

 the rows. The beds are hoed during the early part of 

 the summer, or until the runners have covered the ground, 

 after which no attention is paid to them until the next 

 spring. Then paths about one foot wdde and at a dis- 



1 " The English Gardener" (1845), p. 249. 



2 ♦' Small Fruit Culturist," pp. 61-62. 



