ABC OF STRAWBERRY CULTURE. 115 



STRAWBERRY CULTURE. 



BY THE PUBLISHER. 



Of course, I have been for many years interested in the 

 cultivation of the strawberry, or I should not have been so 

 anxious to have friend Terry write this little book for me. Be- 

 fore, however, I undertake to tell you any thing about my ex- 

 perience and my ideas in regard to strawberries, I wish to tell 

 you of a visit I paid to friend Terry while his berries were right 

 in the height of the season. As the following sketch was taken 

 mainly from Gleanings in Bee Culture, our readers will please 

 bear in mind that it was written with the supposition that the 

 reader was conversant with former numbers of Gleanings : 



When the first chapters of the strawberry-book came we 

 were so full of business I did not pay very much attention to 

 them. I knew that, when the printers got ready to take hold 

 of them, I should have to read them any way. In fact, I have 

 become so tired of reading letters and following out the differ- 

 ent lines of business through the letters, that I do not know 

 but I have lost energy somewhat. Before I got through with 

 the strawberry-book, however, it all came back. Why, in the 

 concluding chapters I could hardly sit still. I looked at my 

 plants out in the plant-garden, and I looked at the ground on 

 the hill by the windmill where I am preparing to plant berries, 

 and I could hardly contain myself. Before I got many pages 

 further, I got into a fever to visit friend Terry. But there were 

 the letters piled up, many of them grievous complaints because 

 the writers had not got their goods. I could not be spared one 

 whole day, that is, in the month of June, and I did not feel as 

 if it would be right for me to desert my post so long. I did, 

 however, write to friend Terry that I wanted the privilege of 

 dropping in upon them some night between nine and ten 

 o'clock ; and I wished them, also, to let me go back about sev- 



