Propagation and Renewal 237 



Climbs to winter injury or drought. If the soil is drawn 

 around the plant each year, so as to keep the advancing 

 stem covered, it will live and bear indefinitely. Good 

 crops have been secured from hill plants that were over 

 twenty years old. 



Current practice in the North. 



In all of Canada except western British Columbia, 

 and in the United States as far south as Kentucky and 

 Missouri, the commercial strawberry is grown mainly in 

 matted or spaced rows and the plants are fruited for one 

 year, occasionally two, rarely longer. It is more com- 

 monly grown as a biennial in those sections that have a 

 mild climate, as New Jersey, the Delaware-Maryland 

 peninsula and farther south, than in the North. A few 

 northern market-gardeners who practice intensive culture 

 and hill training fruit the plants five or six years, some- 

 times longer; but many hill-trained plants in the North 

 are fruited but one year. When potted plants or strong 

 layers are set in August or September they are plowed 

 under after the first crop. Thus they occupy the land less 

 than a year and approximate the semi-annual culture of 

 the South. 



In the South and West. 



In Florida and the coastal plain of Georgia, Alabama, 

 Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas, most of the beds are 

 renewed each year, especially if they become foul with 

 weeds. Formerly the attempt was made to carry the 

 beds over the summer and fruit them two seasons. This 

 was expensive and the results uncertain ; it has been gen- 

 erally abandoned in favor of annual planting. The straw- 

 berry is more nearly a semi-annual in this part of the 



