GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



501 



Belt does coming a Utile later. The plants 

 were, however, put out lato last fall, and may 

 not be up to their best; but the VVm. Belt was 

 also planted late last fall. This spring they 

 did not seem to have withstood the winter 

 nearly as well as the Brandy wine; in fact. I 

 was somewhat disappointed in regard to its 

 hardiness. But they liegan to grow, and, almost 

 before I knew it. had put out iireal fruit stems, 

 and now it is ripening the largest berries I ever 

 saw in my life; and in qtinntity they are piled 

 up almost like the Haverlands. 



As Matthew Crawford says, the first berries 

 to ripen are a good deal cockscombed; but 

 after that you get berries as nice in shape aa 

 the Marshall or Nick Ohmer. Just a word 

 about these first cockscombed berries. We had 

 one that seemed to be great flat berries united. 

 There were four lobes to it. in fact, and it was 

 a good deal the shape of a cube. Its weight 

 was 2V ounces— I think the heaviest berry I 

 ever grew. If you take a peach or an apple 

 weighing 2I4 ounces, you will get some idea of 

 its size. The cube was 2}4 inches on each side. 

 Of cotirse, the berry had to be eaten as you 

 would an apple, and it took several bites to eat 

 the whole of it. At present writing there are 

 lots of these berries that are simply great 

 chunks of fruit. It is almost as sweet as the 

 old Sharpless. and they are good eating without 

 any sugar at all. When one is tired and thirsty, 

 say along between ten and eleven o'clock, three 

 or four of these large berries make quite a nice 

 little lunch. In Mr. Crawford's spring catalog 

 he answers the question, " Which is the best 

 strawberry?:" as follows: 



I will say tliiit the Wm. Bel tlisIthelSbest. berry that 

 IJhave ever grown here.-^ 



I do not know but I prettyjnearly'agreelwith 

 him. lie adds further: 



For vig-orous growth, great productiveness, large 

 size, and good quality combined, I never saw its 

 equal. Under liigh culture, the first berry on the 

 fruit-stalk is apt to be cockscombed: but who will 

 object to liaving a few of their berries flat and tliree 

 inches in diameter? I am not sure that I ever saw 

 two misshapen berries on one fruit-stalk. All but 

 the first one are uniformly of good shape. The color 

 can not be improved. It is neither -rimson nor 

 scarlet, but bright, glossy red.lW^ C^z < — -~i Z~:~ 



CNow, mind you, from ray siandpoint this 22d 

 day of June I feel like placing the Wm. Belt 

 equal to any thing I have ever come across in 

 the way of a desirable berry. Of course, we 

 want some earlier berries, before the Wm. Belt 

 begins to ripen, and we are just now making 

 our last picking on Michel's Early. 



Our friend Dan White, of New London, O., 

 was here a few days ago, and he tells me he is 

 putting out an .^cre and a half this year on the 

 plan I gave on page 782. Oct. 15, 181)5. He says 

 there is not a ripe berry to be found among his 

 Gandys as yet, and he places the Gandy as the 

 latest berry to ripen he has ever found. 



By the way, the berry that I was so well 

 pleased with last year, and that came as the 

 Great American ("see p. 508. issue of July 1st, last 

 year), I am obliged to think is only our old 

 friend .Sharpless under another name. The 

 berries are now in their prime; and the reason 

 they were so much later than every thing else 

 last year was on account of their being grown 

 in such a thick solid bed. The rank foliage 

 and the close planting kept the sun out so as to 

 make the berries late. Well, even if it is the 

 Sharpless the incident has opened tojne a new 

 possibility in strawberry culture. Make your 

 ground exceedingly rich (it had better be heavy 

 clay soil underdrained), then let the plants 

 grow all over. Let them stand just as thick as 

 they have a mind to. Perhaps some currant 



bushes or something of the sort to help shade 

 the ground will assist in making them back- 

 ward. Now, notwithstanding its cramped cir- 

 cumstances, the Sharpless, after all other ber- 

 ries are gone, will produce great monstrous 

 fruit. Of course, the t:erries will not be colored 

 up very much, or at least not to amount to 

 much; but the »SharpIess is very nice to eat 

 when it is partly ripe. But you will find a 

 purchaser at good prices while other berries 

 are too small to bother with. Besides, such a 

 plantation would be little or no trouble. When 

 once started it would choke out every weed 

 that attempts to grow. I have now in bearing 

 some of the (jenuiiie Great American which I 

 received from the originator a year ago. It is 

 a very nice large berry, much like the Marshall, 

 but later; but the plants which were set out 

 last fall do not bear as many berries as the Wm. 

 Belt put out untier similar circumstances. 



SUBIRKIGATION FOK STKAWBERRIES. 



At this date, June 26, right here, we are hav- 

 ing a pretty severe drouth, and it comes almost 

 right in the midst of our strawberry crop. It 

 affects us worse because the groun J was packed 

 down so hard by our excessive rainfalls that it 

 cracKS open and does much damage except 

 where the surface has been fine J up by culti- 

 vation. Our choice strawberries that were 

 planted out late last fall, and which are in nar- 

 row rows. We have cultivated and fined up the 

 space between the rows, so as to obviate the 

 drying and cracking, it least as much as we 

 could without interfering with the mulch. The 

 mulch of straw and potato tops is not suflicient 

 to prevent damage entirely. Our berries are 

 drying up, the greater part of them, and look 

 as if they had been cooked. Had the soil been 

 worked up down deep aft^r the heavy packing 

 rains, the damage would be but slight. In 

 fact, corn and potatoes planted in well-pulver- 

 ized ground after the rains are not suffering 

 perceptibly. We have just had an opportunity 

 of testing the benefit of water in one of our 

 sub-irrigating beds. It is planted to strawber- 

 ries, but no water was turned on during the 

 spring. I purposely left the bed until the ber- 

 ries began to be small and dried up somewhat. 

 Then we turned on water until it came up from 

 below, so as to dampen perceptibly the surface. 



In 48 hours the whole aspect of the bed was 

 changed. Every green berry began to fill up 

 and expand wonde-^fully. Those that had be- 

 gun to shrivel, plumped out. looked very glossy 

 and juicy, and they were juicy too. I tell you. 



There has been considerable said about sell- 

 ing strawberries at the low price of 4 and 5 cts. 

 a quart. Well, that is pretty low; but if we 

 had our beds so arranged that we could water 

 them from below, letting the water gradually 

 rise uo until it comes just near enough the sur- 

 face, I do not know but we could do a pretty 

 good thing by selling tvnter at 4 or 5 cents a 

 quart. Choice varieties like the Brandywine, 

 Wm. Belt, Marshall, and others, bring 6 and 7 

 cents a quart— sometimes 8. 



By the way, the latest berry to ripen on our 

 ground this season is the Champion of England. 

 I think the location of the bed. however, helped 

 to make it late. It was on the north side of a 

 grapevine-trellis, and protected from the sun 

 pretivwell all through the day: then it was 

 mulched with potato vines last fall, so that the 

 plants had to creep up through the vines to get 

 out into th.' open air. This helped to make 

 them late. This morning we made our first 

 picking. A good many of the finest hr-'-ies 

 were scattered through the potato-vine mulch- 

 ing. The drouth had hurt them but very li ttlp, 

 and the great clean luscious berries hidden 



