250 



POPULAR FRUIT GROWING. 



water and attention is required that the operation will be found 

 a losing one except where good facilities of irrigation are at 

 hand. It is occasionally practiced in northern states to set straw- 

 berry plants in autumn, when the plants should be covered with 

 soil and mulched on approach of winter. At the South, straw- 

 berry plants are set in late autumn and in winter. 



If plants are received when the land is very dry, it is the 



custom of the best 

 growers to open the 

 bundles, shake out the 

 plants and dip the 

 roots into a clay-loam 

 mud and "heel them in" 

 close together, putting 

 a little soil between the 

 plants. When thus 

 treated, they may be 

 easily watered, and will 

 commence to grow and 

 be ready to set out in 

 the field or garden as 

 soon as a favorable time 

 offers. If the space 

 where the plants are 

 heeled in is surrounded 

 by a board fence or 

 other windbreak, a few 

 feet high, it will aid 

 much in retarding the drying action of the wind. 



Plants that have been some time in transit are very apt to 

 look white and weak when received, and are almost sure to 

 die if at once set in the full sunshine. They should be "heeled 

 in" and partially shaded until they assume their normal color 

 before planting. 



Plants for setting out may occasionally be found to have the 

 fleshy part of the interior of their stems discolored by the win- 

 ter. If not moved, they will frequently grow and overcome this 

 injury, but if transplanted they often die. The loss from this 



Fig. 116. Strawberry roots pruned 

 for planting out. 



