STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 9I 



very fine berries, particularly strawberries, into Boston, there 

 is no question about disposing of them. It is the large quan- 

 tity of poor stuff that comes into the market that overstocks it. 



Now I said the strawberry would adapt itself to almost any 

 location, but, at the same time, in choosing a situation for the 

 strawberry I Vv^ould get one where the land has a slight slope 

 to it. It does not make so much difference which way the 

 slope is — I would prefer not to have it directly north, and south 

 would be a little too hot. Southeast, southwest, directly east or 

 west is all right. But the great trouble with perfectly flat land 

 that has no natural drainage is that the water will stand over 

 the plants in the winter and you will get a great deal of winter- 

 killing unless you devise some means of getting rid of that 

 surface water. So in choosing a location, get, if you can, nat- 

 ural drainage of the surface, and if you cannot, improve it by 

 artificial drainage. The strawberry responds to artificial drain- 

 age very nicely. As for the character of the soil I don't think 

 it matters a great deal. I have seen the strawberry growing on 

 Cape Cod, just as clear beach sand as you can get anywhere; 

 I have seen it growing in other sections in New England, par- 

 ticularly in the southeast in clay, and in the heaviest black loam 

 in the west. It does not seem to make much difference pro- 

 vided you can give it a certain amount t)f cultivation and the 

 general care that the plants require. So I would not say a 

 great deal about soils, providing they have got at the fruiting 

 season the necessary amount of moisture in them. That is the 

 test of the whole thing finally, because you can grow plants in 

 any kind of soil, whether it is dry or wet, or gravel or loam, 

 but you must have a place where there is plenty of moisture 

 at the time the plants are fruiting, to ripen the crop. So in 

 choosing a location, consider that if you cannot water the 

 plants. 



But the preparation of that soil is a very important point. 

 I noticed Mr. Powell said yesterday that the preparation of 

 orchard soil should be thorough. Well, if that should be 

 thorough, I think the preparation of the soil for any of the 

 small fruits should be more than thorough, because that counts 

 practically all in the future cultivation. You can prepare the 

 soil partly, plant strawberries in witchgrass and dift'erent kinds 

 of biennial grass roots, and the amount of labor you put on to 



