28 WESTERN HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



planted on other exposures, and plants start latest on north- 

 erly slopes, and are not liable to be killed by late spring- 

 frosts. Good, rich, friable soil, deeply cultivated, is suitable, 

 but strawberries should never be planted on sod land, on 

 account of the liability of its being infested with cut worms 

 or with the white grub which feeds upon the roots of the 

 plants. A strawberry bed should be prepared in the fall 

 before planting-, and well rotted manure dug- or plowed in, 

 but not too deep. The plants may be set as early in the 

 spring- as the ground will work well, upon the fall prepared 

 bed in rows 4 ft. wide, plants 1 ft. to 18 in. apart, and when 

 well rooted the spaces between the rows dug 1 or ploVed. No 

 fruit blossoms should be allowed t0 fruit the first year, as the 

 plants will thereby be weakened. Clean culture is needed, 

 and the runners confined to each side so as to make a matted 

 row with a space between for mulching- in dry weather and 

 for convenience in picking-. This space should be kept loose 

 and friable, and when the bed is two or three years old mav 

 be utilized by digging in well rotten manure and allowing 

 runners to root therein, when the old rows may be dug- under 

 and the bed renewed. In this climate strawberries should be 

 covered with a mulch of marsh hay, corn stalks, straw or any 

 litter that does not lie too close, and is free from weed seeds, 

 deep enough to cover the plants, and not too early in the 

 spring- this mulch should be raked off into the space between 

 the rows, and will there do g-ood service in dry weather and 

 be ready to re-cover the plants for late frosts. Care in plant- 

 ing- must be exercised so that where pistillate plants are set 

 (and they are generally the most productive) staminates 

 should be set every alternate or at least every second row. 

 Perhaps the best tested varieties at present among the pistil- 

 lates are Warfield, Haverland and Crescent, and among the 

 staminates Captain Jack, Bederwood and Michael's Early. 

 The principal difficulty in getting plants for planting is their 

 liability to heating in transit and thereby they are rendered 

 useless, and it is always in the interest of the planter to get 

 reliable plants as near home as he can for that reason. 



