258 The Canadian Horticulturist. 



STRAY NOTES. 

 Covering Stpawberries— Keeping Pigs— Overppoduee, etc 



ANY start out with great zeal to cultivate strawberries, but 

 fail to count the cost, i,e., the patience, attention, and 

 exercise of judgment needed, as well as the art of " know- 

 ing how," and in two or three years give it up as a bad 

 job. It certainly requires the above-named qualities to 

 insure success, and the winter protection is an item that 

 cannot be slighted without loss. I have tried all sorts of 

 material for covering, and at different times,, and have settled down to the prac- 

 tice of using clear oat straw when I can get it, and covering early, before any 

 hard frosts, putting on just enough to prevent the thawing and freezing weather 

 to affect the ground and cause heaving. Before this spring I was in the habit 

 of uncovering before Jack Frost had taken his final departure, but I left it on 

 three weeks later this spring, and now at picking time, reap the reward. The 

 foliage and berries are ranker an finer growth, having met with no chilling check 

 from the frost. Care should be taken before the snow comes, to cover any 

 spots where the snow has blown off, as the neglect will become apparent when 

 the foliage begins to grow. Oat straw is a light, buoyant covering, not likely to 

 pack and lie too heavy on the plants. 



Does it pay for gardeners to keep pigs ? A neighbor, John Smedly, living 

 in Nepean, three and a half miles from Ottawa, says, from his experience, that 

 it does pay. Last season he kept ten in a yard of about an eighth of an acre, 

 all summer and fall, into which he had deposited over a hundred loads of man- 

 ure. The pigs kept it well mixed by rooting and added to its value their own 

 droppings, making it worth double what it would have been had it lain dormant 

 all the season. After counting the cost of keeping, and what he paid for the 

 pigs, he realized a fair margin, besides the improvement of his manure. The 

 experiment is worthy of imitation by any who fancy keeping pigs. 



Are we likely to have an overproduction of fruit this year, as to seriously 

 affect the profits of fruit growing, is a question one is inclined to ask just now. 

 Everybody is taking a hand at fruit growing ; many are starting out in the work 

 of tilling the soil that have got tired of other occupations, many are driven to 

 the country by the hard times in the cities and towns, thus increasing the num- 

 ber of producers and lessening that of consumers, and that to the extent as to 

 throw things somewhat out of balance to insure a healthy state of things. In a 

 time of general depression, as at present, all lines of industry suffer more or less, 

 and it would be a wonder if fruit growing and gardening in general did not feel 

 the stagnant stream of the times, and prove less lucrative than in ordinary sea- 

 sons of prosperity. No doubt many who have gone into gardening with little or 



