The Canadian Horticulturist. 



209 



SOME POINTS IN STRAWBERRY GROWING AND 



HARVESTING. 



Selecting Plants. 



TRONG, vigorous one-year-old plants should 

 always be used (older ones are not worth plant- 

 ing), and obtained of the nearest reliable grower. 

 Their roots should be packed in some dampened 

 material as fast as taken from the ground, and 

 kept so until either " heeled in " or planted in the 

 row. Plants shipped in are never as good as 

 home-grown ones. 



Planting. — A man with a spade, beginning at 

 the end of a mark where the row is to be planted, 

 places the middle of the spade on the mark and 

 crossways of the row, thrusts it into the ground at 

 an easy angle to a sufficient depth to receive the 

 roots of the plant in a natural position, shoves the 

 handle forward to an upright position, and at the 

 same time another man grasping a plant well 

 down onto the crown with the thumb and fore- 

 finger, places the same into the opening and under the spade sufficiently deep 

 to have its crown a little under the ground when let back by lifting out the 

 spade, and gently pressed down with the foot as the spader passes to the next 

 place for a plant. Two men should in this way plant from 2,500 to 3,000 plants 

 in a day. Care should be taken not to form too great a depression around 

 plants, as heavy rains will wash in the dirt, covering the crown so deep that it 

 will rot before the start gets above ground, unless the weather is quite warm. 



Cultivation. — This work should be commenced shortly after the planting is 

 finished, and continued constantly through the season until autumn frost occurs. 

 At first run a cultivator between the rows, gauged so as to turn the ground to 

 the plants, avoiding covering them, and the forming a trench which would retain 

 rain-falls around the plants. Then follow with hoe to level down any ridges 

 which may occur, and clear out all weeds. In some kinds of heavy clay soils it 

 sometimes becomes necessary to run a one-horse turning plow with the bar side 

 well up to the row, and in a few days work the dirt back to the row with a culti- 

 vator. As a strong plant growth is the one important end to be gained, it is 

 folly to permit the newly set plants to develop blossoms and fruit the first year ; 

 therefore all such growths should be promptly pinched off as soon as they 

 appear. All runners should be promptly removed until the plant becomes well 

 established ; then, if to be grown under the matted-row system, the runners 

 should be turned into the space between the hills, and then into the space 



