52 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



I have done, but if you will sow the seed from the plants grown 

 on your own land, and repeat the process for several years, the 

 time may come when you can successfully grow this crop in 

 Ivlaine. My first year did not give the best results, but the 

 longer the plant was used in this way, the easier it was to grow 

 it. Now I have eighty acres covered. So continue on, and after 

 several years, if you find it persistently dies, leave it. There is 

 the possibility of so acclimating it that it will be as useful 

 here as in New York. 



I hope I have given you some encouragement to go on with 

 orchard extension in your State. I hope I have given you rea- 

 son to have faith in this attempt, and I am sure if you will 

 follow out high tillage, and select stock as indicated, the acres 

 you plant to trees will give you higher value than anything else 

 you can plant on it. Tillage, spraying, feeding, pruning, selec- 

 tion, — these are the requisites to success in orcharding. 



DISCUSSION. 



Question : Has Mr. Powell succeeded in carrying a full 

 crop of strawberries under such conditions? 



Mr. Powell : I did not touch on small fruits. I will say that 

 I have been applying this system of tillage in strawberry culture 

 to some extent. In 1893, at the Columbian Exhibition in Chi- 

 cago, a strawberry plant on which there were at one time 243 

 blossoms, was shown. A great many people doubted the state- 

 ment, but many counted them and found it correct. I became 

 interested in the possible development of strawberries and began 

 a series of experiments at my place. A plot of land was laid out 

 in 1897, and a crop of red clover was plowed in. Crimson 

 clover was then planted. Then manure was hauled on, and in 

 the spring it was plowed and subsoiled to the depth of 22 inches, 

 and then plowed again. Over ten thousand plants were set, and 

 the cultivator was kept going. Numbers of those plants meas- 

 ured two feet in diameter. What was the result? The develop- 

 ment was pressed, of course, to a great extent in the growth of 

 the plant, but some of the plants had as many as 650 berries on 

 them. This shows that the development was carried away 

 beyond anything shown at the World's Fair, and the limit of 

 possibilities is not reached yet. 



