72 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



In choosing a location for the cuUivation of small fruits try to get 

 one where there is some natural ^Yindbreak from the north and 

 northwest. Nothing does a plantation more harm than sweeping 

 winds. In summer the ground is dried and baked by the wind; 

 dust from other fields is blown over the fruit, and the fruit itself 

 dried up and made worthless. In an open winter the coverings, 

 mulches, etc. are blown oif and the canes and plants are badly 

 damaged by the cold wind striking directly upon them. Here in the 

 north we have been too careless in the past by cutting off the woods 

 and trees, and, unless the land is to be entirely cleared, a belt of 

 trees should be left about every large field to serve as a windbreak, 

 and where this is impossible evergreens like white and Norway 

 spruce should be planted. 



Of the strawberry Dr. Boteler said: "Doubtless God could have 

 made a better berry but doubtless God never did," and A. J. Down- 

 ing, one of the pioneers in the strawberry field, truly said: "Ripe 

 blushing strawberries eaten from the plant, or served with sugar 

 and cream are certainly Arcadian dainties with a true paradisical 

 flavor," and fortunately they are so easily grown that the poorest 

 owner of a few feet of ground may have them in abundance. 



Certainly the strawberry is the most widely grown fruit in culti- 

 vation and probably, all things considerejd, the most popular. Its 

 history is not much older than the discovery of America for we have 

 a record of a description of it, in 14S5 from one Juan de Cuba. A 

 later writer spoke of it as follows. 



"When we contemplate the relation which the strawberry plant 

 bears to other parts of nature, to the sun which expands its blossoms, 

 to the winds which sow its seeds, to the brooks whose banks it em- 

 bellishes; when we contemplate how it is preserved during a winter's 

 cold capable of cleaving stones, how it appears verdant in the spring 

 without any pains employed to preserve it from frost and snow, 

 how, feeble and trailing along the ground, it should be able to 

 migrate from the deepest valleys to alpine heights, to traverse the 

 globe from north to south, from mountain to mountain, forming 

 on its passage over prairie and plain a thousand mingled patches 

 of checkerwork of its fair flowers and scarlet or rose colored fruits 

 with the plants of every clime, though myriads of animals are mak- 

 ing incessant and vmiversal havoc upon it, yet no gardener is neces- 



