62 THANSACTIONS OF THE 



tive in grass. What can be done to renoyate that ? I hope at the next 

 meeting some one will be ready to answer this question. 



STEAWBERRIES. 

 R. G. Pardee. — The necessarily very brief notes of the sayings of the 

 Farmers' Club, hardly convey a sufficient answer to the very proper inquiry, 

 how strawberries can be cultivated for fifty cents a bushel. I have said 

 this does not include the cost of gathering and selling, and in Western 

 New York, where experiments have been largely tried, good land can be 

 bought for $50 per acre, the interest of which is S3. 50. I never purchased, 

 but raised my own plants. I once stimulated a single plant of Burr's New 

 Pine so as to produce me 1,400 good plants for sitting out in less than six- 

 teen months. So, of course, no economical market raiser will expend large 

 sums of money for plants, but raise them from a few pure plants. Again, 

 I would select good land in suitable condition, and rich enough for corn 

 and potatoes. I am opposed to all stimulating animal manures for the 

 strawberry, or land over-enriched, as some portions of the gardens are, but 

 I have always preferred land in the best possible condition for a crop. 

 Then apply a moderate coating of unleached ashes, lime and salt, say three 

 bushels of ashes, one of lime, and four or six quarts of salt, and, if need 

 be, prepared muck or leaf mould or turf. See that the land selected is 

 neither too wet nor too dry, neither too sandy nor too heavy, too high nor 

 too low. Then plow, sub-soil and harrow thoroughly, and in favorable 

 weather set out the plants twelve to sixteen inches apart in rows three feet, 

 so as to let a horse cultivator pass between them. Keep them clean in the 

 usual way, and of course they can be cultivated in this manner very nearly 

 as cheap as corn and potatoes. Care must be taken to select a suitable 

 location, and soil in the right condition, well prepared ; then set out the 

 plants in such condition and weather as not to be seriously checked in their 

 growth from the transplanting ; select the best varieties, and keep each 

 one separated from all other runners ; permit no plant nor runner to 

 remain nearer than a foot to every other plant ; always keep them clean, 

 and not only uniform large crops may be expected, but superior fruit, and 

 all at a cost of less than fifty cents per bushel for the mere cultivation, as 

 my own and others' observation and experience abundantly attests. The 

 difficulty is, so many do something as directed and neglect others, which 

 prove equally fatal, while many are clogged with old ideas, habits and cus- 

 toms on this subject, from which they only break away one thing at a time. 

 This will not do. If you mulch your bed with tan, the mulch will keep 

 down the growth of weeds near the plant. I would let runners grow, and 

 in the fiill take a fine rake and pull up the weak plants of the runners. 

 This is cheaper than any plan of cutting off the runners, and does not 

 injure the plants. In setting plants, I would use the plants from the first 

 end of the runners, because the roots are stronger than those at the little 

 end of the vine. The Wilson strawberry has been so well tested for four 

 years past that I should be willing to adopt it into field culture. The 



