io6 An American Fruit-Farm 



free from weeds and enemies, and you will have 

 berries. In common experience the chief enemy 

 is the white grub or cutworm, the larva of the 

 ordinary August locust. It is said to spend seven- 

 teen years underground, and seventeen days as 

 locust, during which it lays its eggs against another 

 subterranean sojourn. Every locust stands for 

 seventeen ruined strawberry beds. The only 

 remedy is to set the plants where there are no 

 grubs, and this means in soil that has been worked 

 deep and thoroughly for several years. Repeated 

 plowing of the ground throws out the grubs that 

 they may be devoured by birds and the patient 

 hen. 



The strawberry plant is short-lived, for com- 

 mercial purposes, and its fruit deteriorates after 

 the first crop. Unless very near a good market, 

 one better have a strawberry bed than a strawberry 

 field. The crop must be handled quickly, at 

 short distance from market, and with unusual skill, 

 — ^if made profitable. The Marshall, Brandywine, 

 Parker, and Eagle are, or were yesterday, desirable 

 varieties; but each season brings new ones, more 

 ntimerous than of plums or grapes. The desired 

 berry is large, firm, of high color, of fine quality, 

 odor, and taste. But the market demands a good 

 shipping berry. Most of the best eating berries 

 are poor shippers, and many good shippers are 

 poor eating. So the fruit-farmer raises straw- 

 berries for his own table and strawberries to sell 

 to city folk who may not know the difference. It 



