Propagation and Renewal 239 



the method of culture, method of training, the variety 

 and the comparative cost of renewing and resetting. 



The location and its climate. 



Large quantities of strawberries now are grown in parts 

 of the South which once were considered wholly unsuited 

 for this crop because of the long hot summer. Attempts to 

 carry beds through the summer by means of shading and 

 mulching have yielded indifferent results. It is more 

 practicable, in most cases, to grow them only in the cooler 

 part of the year. Plants set from August to October, 

 according to the locality, will bear a good crop the follow- 

 ing spring, five to seven months after they were set ; then 

 they are plowed under. Exactly opposite conditions are 

 met in the higher altitudes of Montana and Colorado, 

 which have a very short season. Plants set in April or 

 May do not develop fully the first season and bear only one- 

 fourth to one-third of a crop the following spring. Paying 

 returns are not secured until the second season after plant- 

 ing, and it is found desirable to fruit the plants at least 

 three years. 



Method of culture. 



When land is high in value and intensive culture is 

 practiced, as in market-gardening and trucking, it is more 

 profitable to secure one heavy crop of strawberries and then 

 use the land for some other crop than to carry the plants 

 through the summer, when there would be no income from 

 the land. Liberal use is made of horse manure, which is 

 full of weed seeds ; this is another incentive to annual crop- 

 ping. When strawberries are grown as a main crop on 

 land of only moderate value, as in the Ozarks, it may be 

 cheaper to fruit the bed several years. Annual renewal 



