24 SECOND THOUSAND QUESTIONS IN AGRICULTURE 



Melinda, and Brandywine if you wish quite a variety to draw from. 

 The length of your bearing season will depend upon how well you use 

 water. A "complete fertilizer" such as is sold for fruit purposes, is 

 right for strawberries. Be careful not to fertilize too heavily or you 

 will get mostly leaves, an enormous growth of runners and little 

 disposition to fruit. 



Garden Strawberries. 



My strawberries are growing vigorously and are beginning to blossom. 

 Shall I let them bear this year? How many runners shall I allow them 

 to grow this fall? Or shall I pinch off all blooms and runners until 

 next year? 



As an amateur, likely to give the plants good growing conditions 

 all summer, you can let the plants fruit without injuring them, and 

 you can grow them as singles for several fruiting seasons unless you 

 wish some more plants for your own use. If so, limit the runners 

 to meet your needs and husband the fruit capacity of the parent plants 

 thereby. Fruiting singles instead of making matted rows is also a 

 commercial method if one is willing to give the plants the attention 

 required. 



Walnuts in the San Joaquin. 



On Hat valley land in the Fresno region will walnuts stand the tem- 

 perature and the tree make a good growth? If so, what varieties are 

 best? Would hardpan land do, provided the hardpan was blasted through? 

 There are no commercial plantings, but a few isolated trees are thrifty, 

 and yield good nuts. 



On soils sufficiently deep and free frcm alkali, the walnut 

 is satisfactory in your valley, if it is grown upon the California black 

 walnut root. The Franquette and Mayette seem to be least liable to 

 sunburn. If the land has a thin layer of hardpan which can be dis- 

 posed of by digging through or blasting, with a subsoil free from 

 alkali, it is probably suitable for walnut growing. 



Walnut Scions. 



Should walnut scions be cut a few weeks before using them? How 

 should they be kept during this time? Does the bleeding of the stumps 

 affect the growth of the grafts? 



Walnut scions should be cut and stored in a cold place if there 

 is danger of becoming too active. The stock should be a little more 

 advanced than the scion. In grafting large trees, sometimes bleeding 

 "drowns" the scion. It can be checked by boring a quarter-inch hole 

 into the stump near the ground. 



Grafting Walnuts. 



When is the best time to topgraft walnuts? 



Walnuts should be grafted rather late in the winter in order to 

 avoid drying out of the scion before it starts to grow. Some success- 



