120 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



a case I would ask Mr. Augur if he would not advise running for 

 two or three years, and could not some profit be got out of it in that 

 way? 



Mr. Augur. Well, that is a thing to be considered. In a private 

 garden sometimes it may be desirable to let a strawberry bed go 

 over the second year. Brother Atherton speaks of people being dis- 

 couraged by the idea that only one crop can be taken off from a set 

 of plants. But there is another view of it. I don't know of any- 

 thing that encourages anybody more than a heav}^ crop, and if we 

 find that we can get a heavier crop by shifting onto another piece 

 of the garden and putting in something else where the strawberries 

 were it seems to me that is encouraging. I may be extreme in my 

 views, but one of the oldest strawberry growers in our State said to 

 me, "people lose a great deal by undertaking to run a strawberry 

 bed the second or third 3^ear," and I have come to believe it. At 

 the same time I know that people do sometimes get a very fair crop 

 the second year by a good deal of care. We have tried it, but we 

 have found that it does not pay. On a piece of land that is very 

 free from weeds and very easy of cultivation it might do. 



Mr. Atherton. One thing more I would like to have you make 

 a little plainer, and that is as to the application of manure the third 

 year. The first year you plant corn with a certain amount of dress- 

 ing ; the second year potatoes with a certain amount of dressing, as 

 a preparation of the soil for a strawberry bed. Then you plow the 

 sub-soil and you apply twenty-five cords to the acre. Now I wish 

 to know whether you would advocate plowing that way down deep 

 into the sub-soil? Do you apply it before plowing or after? 



Mr. Augur. We have applied before. In planting corn we always 

 appl}" the manure to the surface and run the cultivator freeh' and 

 think that is as profitable a way as any. But in the strawberry field 

 we like to get a good deep soil and we run the sub-soil plow right 

 following the surface plow, not turning the red or yellow dirt up to 

 .the surface, but simply loosening the soil. 



