ABC OF STRAWBERRY CULTURE. 71 



much experience in growing strawberries, and he shook his 

 head sadly at the great thick growth of vines I had (what a 

 time we had plowing them under, or trying to, after picking 

 the fruit ! ) and said if I had kept the runners all cut off, and 

 just had my single hills 2 feet by 4, I would have had larger 

 berries, and more of them, and more satisfaction. This, with 

 the generally expressed opinion that hill culture produces the 

 largest, finest fruit, caused me to decide to keep the most of 

 the new bed set out that season in hills. We did so, and they 

 grew finely (except the Sterlings) and stooled out so as to make 

 very large hills. When friend Root and Dr. Fenn (an authori- 

 ty) were looking at them in the fall, the doctor remarked : 

 "Those hills," pointing to some of the best, "will yield two 

 quarts apiece." This made me happy, for one quart to the 

 hill was all I had hoped for. But when picking time came, I 

 do not think the average was over a pint to the hill. I learned 

 something at a cost of, say, $75. Do you think that perhaps 

 the same varieties in matted rows would not have done any bet- 

 ter, that season, under the same conditions ? Well, I was smart 

 enough to grow a few that way, some in narrow rows and some 

 in wide, some thick, and some thin. An exact account was not 

 kept of the yield from the different strips, as I had no thought 

 of ever telling of. it, and it was so decidedly in favor of the 

 wide, thin matted rows. An old bachelor brother-in-law of 

 mine, who gets a little impatient sometimes when things do not 

 go right, helped pick these berries. He would run over two or 

 three rows of the hills to get a peck basketful ; but when he 

 came to that wide, thin matted row, he would bring in his bas- 

 ket full and say : "Confound that row! I have picked there 

 for an hour, and there is another basketful there yet ! " (a little 

 exaggerated). 



Another point which I could hardly believe : There was 

 very little if any difference -in the size of the berries, on an 

 average. Could we have had our harvest-time experience a 

 year beforehand, we could easily have made one hundred dol- 



