STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 85 



pared, as it would to change round every second or third year, 

 especially on rocky soil. 



I am aware that this theory is in direct conflict with some of our 

 best authorities and most experienced growers. But I have run 

 them seven years on the same ground, and my crop the past season 

 was the best I ever raised under the circumstances, for the ice laid 

 in one solid sheet over the whole bed last winter, and just scorched 

 the life out of the best bearing plants, so that in the early part of 

 the season I thought I should not get any, but I marketed fifty 

 bushels of fine fruit, besides what was used for home consumption. 

 Mr Sebastian Smith, an old grower in Oxford, who has been in the 

 business over twent}^ years, tells me that he has raised them sixteen 

 years on the same ground without their showing any signs of dete- 

 rioration. I have no doubt but that if the soil is properly fed with 

 mineral and decayed vegetable manures, such as salt, ashes and leaf 

 mould, they can be successfully raised on the same ground for an 

 indefinite length of time. 



In regard to varieties, I have experimented with several kinds, 

 and have discarded them all except the Crescent Seedling, for a 

 field crop. There is double the money in that for me that there is 

 in any other I have ever tested. It is a more rampant grower, and 

 throws out more runners than any other variety, and sets all the 

 plants needed for a full crop the first season. 



Now comes the debatable question of fertilization, which I shall 

 not try to settle, for I want to leave something for the experiment 

 station to do. I have tried to inform myself on this question, have 

 read all the papers I could get on both sides, and can get no nearer 

 the facts, or tell any more than you can how to exterminate the 

 white grub, or when is the best time to trim apple trees ; but I have 

 about come to the conclusion that I can raise more strawberries 

 from a peck of manure than I dan from a bushel of literature. This I 

 do know, I have raised them at the rate of one hundred and fifty to 

 two hundred bushels per acre without any fertilizer near them, but 

 how many more I should have had if every third row had been set 

 with the Captain Jack, or any other staminate sort, I cannot tell. 

 But I have observed that there is some human nature in plants as 

 well as people. They delight in having their own way, and need a 

 great deal of training and pruning to keep them where they should 

 be, and it would seem perfectly natural that if every third row was 

 set with some staminate sort that they would be more prolific. 



