STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 87 



is an^-thing- which is likely to fix the thoughts of children upon 

 the home it is the growing of plants. There are dififerent sides 

 to that, too. I remember in my own case that my thoughts and 

 memories of the strawberry were not so much connected with 

 the berry and cream side, as it was with the weeding exercise 

 which was mentioned. That was quite an important part of 

 my early experience. The weeding of strawberries and the 

 weeding of carrots were closely associated with my earliest mem- 

 ories of garden work, and as I got down on my knees and fol- 

 lowed that row I used to measure it with my eye and mentally 

 subtract each foot from the total length as I progressed. But 

 if we practice modern methods these hand-weeding difficulties 

 of culture may be entirely obviated. 



I would like to say that in New York state, in the principal 

 strawberry county in that state, there are now growing up two 

 sets of strawberry growers, — one set which has the ideal of 

 quality before it, the other set which has the ideal of quantity 

 before it. The growers for quality select their varieties, practice 

 certain methods of culture and usually reap higher rewards than 

 the other set. The one is the strawberry farmer, and the other 

 one is the strawberry culturist. In one instance which I knew' 

 of very well, the man grows Marshall — I don't know whether 

 the reader of the paper has grown that variety or not, but the 

 Marshall is to the strawberry what the Spitzenberg or the 

 Mcintosh Red is to the great class of apples, — it represents to 

 my mind at any rate the acme of excellence, but like many of 

 these finer varieties it is not as productive, and it requires special 

 care. Now the ^Marshall should be cultivated in narrow rows 

 instead of wide rows. The ordinary way is to cultivate your 

 strawberries in a matted row of two to two and one-half or even 

 three feet wide ; and in these rows where the plants are not 

 thinned out, naturally there is a great deal of competition and it 

 is a struggle in which the fittest survives. The general size of 

 the fruit is brought down. But in growing the Marshall this 

 grower, as I say, keeps his rows narrow and thins his plants. 

 He arranges and sets a plant here and carries out four runners 

 at opposite points, making a row about fifteen inches wide, and 

 having the plants spaced as it were, each one is able to take 

 advantage of its circumstances to the fullest extent. So much 

 for the growinsf. 



