•PROCEEDINGS OF THE FARMERS' CLUB. 141 



in December. Our girls picked a few, frozen solid, on New Year's 

 day. Hence the forwardness this spring. All warm climates are 

 very dry. You can see what would be the result if they were as 

 moist as cold ones. There would be a second growth and devel- 

 opment of' buds and blossoms, Avhich the frosts of winter would 

 kill. Our only salvation is the lon.g drouths, which utterly dry 

 up the grass. We had a fine setting of strawberries from reserved 

 buds. But there has been no rain from the time they blossomed 

 till picking commenced, and still there is none. The fruit has 

 shrunk to the size of small bullets, and the green ones are withered. 

 The crop is only a little more than half picked, but we have ceased 

 to ship. In a few uncultivated, weedy and grassy places the fruit 

 is fresh and fine. Had we thickly mulched straw around the 

 plants, so as to keep the ground moist, the crop ought to have 

 been sure. It is difiicult always to get straw. One engaged in 

 the strawberry business ought not to neglect the straw part. Per- 

 haps if rye had been sown between the rows last fall, it would 

 have been a great help. Our plants were well cultivated, they 

 grew very large, and many are in hills. We expected work 

 would pay. The larger the plants were, the poorer and smaller 

 is the fruit. So many berries were set that they could not mature. 

 Plants of moderate size and tolerably close together did best. I 

 am sorry to say I hear of no settled plan. The more I have 

 studied and expended, and the harder I have worked, the less suc- 

 cessful have I been. Next year we expect to do better. We 

 have set out new grounds, because we have found that we cannot 

 get a first-rate crop except on young plants, and that old plants 

 are nearly worthless. We think we have learned this for certain; 

 if we have, it is the only thing we have learned. I do not know 

 that it is right to tell it, but I will, though I do not want anybody 

 to take me as a guide — the largest crop I ever raised was where 

 the only work done was to mow off the weeds in the fall, and hoe 

 out a little grass in March. There were a great man}'- plants, but 

 the fruit was scandalously small. I have a faint conviction that a 

 little work is all-important, that the land should l^e good, and that 

 much work is a damage. But let nobody listen to me, for I really 

 know nothing about it. I have raised strawberries ten years, and 

 know less than when I began. Still, whatever be the cultivation, 

 there is, in this section, no other crop so sure. Even if it fails, 

 and there are no more than ten bushels to the acre, we get more 

 money than from anything else. One year with another, the price 



