NINTH ANNUAL MEETING. 97 



price simply because it is put up in fancy squares and 

 rolled in clean butter paper. It takes time and attention 

 to the little details of the business in all its parts — not only 

 breed, but feed, handling:, style of packing, all bear their 

 part. Exactly so with small fruits at the present day. 

 New fruit is not always best, neither are new methods for 

 us, yet we must keep trying to increase productiveness and 

 lessen expenses, and remember that quality and appear- 

 ance are as necessary as productiveness. 



My burden partially rolled off as I noticed on the pro- 

 gram just ahead of me the name of Mr. H. L. Fairchild, who 

 has had a larger experience in testing new varieties, and 

 further, his experience would likely be of more value to 

 you near his location. 



Perhaps it would interest some here to state how I 

 raised my best crop of strawberries, which was the one I 

 picked in the season of 1896 — 320 bushels from one and 

 eleven-sixteenths-acre piece. 



The land was heavy clay; had been in grass, mowed and 

 pastured for ten or twelve years, during which time the 

 whole field of three acres had only the manure from one 

 cow. I purchased the field in the spring of 1894 and 

 spread on it three cords of manure per acre, plowed this 

 in, and planted potatoes, using Stockbridge potato manure 

 in the drills; dug the potatoes middle of August and as 

 there were some spots of quack grass I harrowed it thor- 

 oughly and sowed the piece with barley, to more thor- 

 oughly subdue the quack and make a covering for the 

 ground during winter. I plowed the land as early in 

 spring as it would crumble nicely, finding it in much bet- 

 ter mechanical condition than a piece of similar soil near by 

 that had lain bare during the winter. I harrowed it fine 

 and set the plants May 10 to 17, using my homegrown 

 plants from a field near at hand. Set them in rows three 

 and one-half feet apart and plants about fifteen inches in 

 the row — 105 rows of twelve rods' length, nine varieties, 

 principally Bubach, Lovett and Parker Earle — thirty 

 Lovett, twenty-one Bubach, twenty Parker Earle, ten 

 Greenville, eight Haverland, five Mammoth Beauty, four 

 Timbrel, four VanDeman, three Eureka. No farm 



