236 Strawberry-Growing 



the berry may be pared off, and the parings placed in a 

 stout cloth and kneaded under water to work out the pulp. 

 Mix the seed with dry sand and sow it immediately in 

 flats, coldframes or in the open ground. The soil should 

 be light and rich; the seeds should be covered not over 

 one-eighth of an inch deep. Water with a hand sprinkler. 

 In two months the strongest seedlings may be pricked out 

 and set in fruiting rows, about two feet by three feet. In 

 the North, seedlings do not bear much until two years old ; 

 in the South, and especially with everbearing varieties, 

 considerable fruit is secured in less than a year. 



Division. 



This consists of dividing an old plant into several pieces, 

 or ''fingers,'' each with roots attached, and setting these in 

 the same way as layer plants. This may be done to best 

 advantage in early spring. It is rarely practiced except 

 to save the stock of a new or rare variety that is threatened 

 with extinction. Some varieties that make few, if any, 

 runners, as the Pan-American and the bush Alpines, are 

 propagated by division. 



AGE OF THE PLANTATION 



The strawberry is a perennial plant; theoretically, it 

 can live and bear indefinitely. As the plant grows older, 

 the crown, or stem, gradually elongates, and new roots 

 are formed each year below the point where they were the 

 year previous, thus pushing the crown higher. Some 

 of the so-called "tree strawberries" are merely very 

 old plants with long stems. This habit of growth auto- 

 matically limits the life of the plant, if left to itself. In a 

 few years it has pushed so far out of the soil that it sue- 



