110 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



mentation ; bone and ashes mixed, dampened down and remaining 

 a few weeks covered with sufficient earth to decompose, form an 

 excellent manure. There is no form in which potash can be applied 

 so well as in good, unleached wood ashes. Caustic chemicals if 

 applied at all should be used with extreme caution ; an overdose of 

 nitrate of soda ma}' do positive harm. 



Special strawberry manure of any reliable firm is useful but more so 

 if applied very early in the season so as to become thoroughly dilu- 

 ted and incorporated with the soil before the active growing and fruit- 

 ing season. No one rule, or formula, can have general application 

 in applying manures, so much depends upon the special deficienc}' 

 in any given field. Special manures and commercial fertilizers are 

 valuable to supplement our home manures, but we should not depend 

 wholly upon them. We should on the contrary plan to keep as much 

 farm stock as ma}^ be compatible with our circumstances with special 

 reference to the manure product. Josiah Quincy, I think, gave utter- 

 ance to the statement that a ''cow's droppings were worth as much 

 as her milk." That they have great value we fully appreciate. 

 Cemented gutters with plenty of absorbents will enable us to save 

 more wisely these valuable products, specially good for small fruits. 

 A large vat fourteen by twenty feet, by six feet in depth with 

 drains from stables and barn-yards to a connecting reservoir with 

 pump is an arrangement affording the best facilities for using liquid 

 manure in compositing and fermenting all coarse material that needs 

 decomposing and nitrifying. 



In these days, when the manure problem is one of the hardest 

 problems to solve, we must avail ourselves of nature's forces, which 

 are waiting to be set to work, and use them for all they are worth. 

 As the proper action of yeast upon dough is a great aid and factor 

 in good digestion, so we believe the proper action of ferment germs 

 or microbes upon crude manures is a most salutary work, and should 

 be more generally secured. 



As this paper is somewhat fragmentary, I will touch upon a few 

 points that I consider important. First, Do varieties wear out? 

 Yes. How soon? It depends upon treatment. Suppose A and B 

 are neighbors ; they both grow the Sharpless strawberry. A selects 

 plants from his best stock that have not fruited, cuts off all blooms, 

 gives good culture on good land, weeds out all mongrel plants ; and 

 thus, year after year, intensifies all the good points of the kind. 

 B, on the contrary, takes his plants from old stock that are de- 



