171 



tlie cliaracteristics of both plant and fruit should again be 

 noted, and after fruiting, those varieties worthy of further 

 test should be cleaned up by remoA'iug all the old leaves 

 around the crowns, taken up wdth a ball of earth attached, 

 and set out in single rows three and a half to four feet apart, 

 and one and one half to two feet apart in the row to allow 

 for runner making, which will multiply the numljer of plants 

 for fiQ'ther use, and allow us to make another valuable test 

 the following year. It may now" well be that some of our 

 supposedly poorer varieties, as grown in hills, show up to best 

 advantage when fruiting in the small runner plants. Like- 

 wise those varieties which were not promising enough to 

 lake pots from in the original bed, being allowed to set their 

 plants on the ground all around them, now become some of 

 the most highly prized. Two of my most productive and 

 most valuable varieties came from the original bed of hill 

 plants, and one of these has since taken the silver medal the 

 past year. 



After weeding out those varieties now known not to be 

 superior, finother severe test is made by allowing the beds 

 made up by runner plants to go through several winters with- 

 out mulch to test their rooting system. The thin and shallow 

 rooted varieties will heave out of the ground and so should 

 l3e discarded. 



My own plants have survived four or five winters or 

 more without any mulch, and out of 7000 varieties I have 

 now remaining 150, which are very promising. The only two 

 which I have thus far exhibited at the Massachusetts Horti- 

 cultural Society have taken silver medas. The "Judith" 

 was awarded the silver by the Massachusetts Horticultural 

 Society the summer of 1915, and three first prizes the sum- 

 mer of 1917 by the same society at their annual strawberry 

 show. At the same time they brought at wholesale in the 

 open market at Boston sixty cents per quart for the first 

 shipment. 



The "Judith" is a bi-sexual variety and one of the five 

 most productive varieties out of 7000. It is the first to ripen, 



