108 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



Having settled upon kinds to plant a favorite plan vrith us is to 

 plant in rows three feet by two feet. Allow each plant to make only 

 two new plants being thus repressed by catting off all surplus run- 

 ners. Enormously heavy plants are the result which have many crowns 

 and yield heavily of very large berries. This plant applies to spring 

 planting while August planting should be twenty b}^ twenty or 

 eighteen by twenty- four; runners kept cut. This at twenty by 

 twenty would require 15,642 plants per acre and as we have ex- 

 ceeded one quart per plant on a 1.22 of an acre you can estimate 

 what a yield that would be ; 488 bushels per acre, are plants set in 

 August 1st, not potted but layered (potted.) Now you will please 

 understand we do not always plant in this way ; as we have constant 

 orders for plants we have been obliged to do in a way that would 

 give many plants as well as much fruit, but we have tested the 

 method sufficiently to judge its merits. 



And right here I desire to emphasize the matter of under-drain- 

 age as one of special importance where good natural drainage is not 

 found, by first removing superfluous water and thus adding several 

 degrees of heat to the soil ; second, by improving the capillary or 

 porous condition of the soil. This point I fully believe is not well 

 appreciated ; in order to have nature do her perfect work air must 

 permeate the soil ; some of the most important functions of plant 

 life and soil adaptation depend upon air in the soil, while water is the 

 great solvent and very essential, air is no less so. But I fancy 

 some one will ask ' is there not danger by thorough drainage of 

 losing too much water from the soil?" Unquestionably there are 

 periods when long and severe droughts prevail, when irrigation 

 would be a great advantage not only on drained but on undrained 

 land. And yet I have found that land in the best porous condition 

 always withstands drought best. Therefore, were I anticipating a 

 severe drought I would take my chances on the land well drained, 

 trusting to the greater absorbing power at the surface and also in 

 the better capillary absorbing power below, together with the deeper 

 root-growth always found in land well drained and sub-soiled. 

 Again, by underdraining and sub-soiling thus aerating the soil for 

 two feet or more, we render available the plant food, specially of a 

 mineral nature like lime, magnesia, and potash, to so much greater 

 depth, that we add largely to plant resources or soil resources. 



When I was a young man I commenced farmino; on a badl^' run 

 down farm. A friend looking over the farm with me, said, '^well 



