178 ABC OF STRAWBERRY CULTURE. 



Now the next step is to put a plant 9 inches off on each side of 

 every plant in the row. The diagram shown will make it plain. 

 The large stars are the original plants, and the small ones 

 where the runners are put down. 



You will notice that the above arrangement makes the 

 plants 9 inches apart from center to center ; each old plant is 

 to furnish five young ones. The row of plants is 18 inches 

 wide, the path 2^ feet wide. Well, after you yet these three 

 rows, plants 9 inches apart, then you are to pull off every run- 

 ner. Go over the ground so often that not a weed gets a start, 

 and not another plant gets a start except the three rows as giv- 

 en above. The effect is to make each plant, by the time frost 

 comes, a strong bunchy cluster. It is several years since we 

 first practiced taking off all the runners so as to get strong 

 bushy plants ; but I am firmly convinced that in no other way 

 can we get such large fine berries. 



The next question is, What variety shall we use? Dan 

 White's model strawberry- patch is Gandys nothing else. You 

 know there has been a complaint that the Gandy does not bear 

 very much. Some large strong plants, for instance, will not 

 bear a single berry at least, not the first season. Well, friend 

 W. says it is because the plant has not grown to a sufficient 

 size. He says if you take the first Gandy runners that set in 

 June or July, give them good cultivation, and stop off all the 

 other runners, you will get a plant by fall big enough to give a 

 good crop of fruit next year, and I believe he is right. Our 

 Gandys always did better the second season from planting. 



This patch of strawberries on friend White's premises is, I 

 believe, the handsomest, and the most of a model patch, of any 

 thing I ever saw anywhere, unless it is those of Henry Young, 

 Ada, O., that I looked at last winter. There are absolutely no 

 weeds in it. There was a plant wherever there should be one, 

 and no extra ones. And I tell you, friends, it is a grand thing 

 to have a full stand in raising any crop. This reminds me that 

 I forgot to say that T. B. Terry's potato-fields were absolutely a 

 full stand. There were no missing hills at least, I did not see 

 any. But his planting was all done by hand. Since digging 

 his Freemans he tells me that, on his best ground, they ran as 

 high as 195 bushels per acre. Now, for the season we have had. 

 especially the severe drouth in his locality, and for a potato of 

 such fine quality as the Freeman, this is certainly doing pretty 

 well, especially where a whole farm, as it were, is planted to 

 potatoes. But, to come back to friend White's. 



