SIXTEENTH ANNUAL MEETING. 139 



wheel lioe used astride tlie row. This works \\\) the soil wlicrc 

 the eullixator eannot he used and forms a dust inuleh al)out 

 the plants. 'I'his eonstant stirring" of the soil is one of the 

 most important duties of the strawberry growers; if the season 

 is dry and hot this loosened soil forms a i)erfect mulch and 

 keeps the ground water from exaporating from the soil; and 

 so the fine tt)oth cultivator is kept going at least once a week, 

 if the ground is not w^et. 



.All blossoms and buds are remox'ed from the i)lants as soon 

 as they appear. This necessitates a good deal of work, but it 

 is one of the important things to do, in order' to get good 

 strong plants. The grc^und is culti\'ated twice between each 

 row until the runners begin to set, after which the cultivator is 

 run only once in each space. Ilie ground is hoed at least every 

 ten days, at first with a wide hoe and then as the plants fill in 

 the row a narrow hoe is used. In some varieties which have a 

 tendency to make too many runners the first ones are pulled ofT 

 in order to give the parent plant the extra strength necessary 

 for the de\'elopment of stronger runners later on. When a 

 sufficient numlier of plants are rooted in the row^ the parent 

 plant in pulled out and a good strong runner from another 

 plant allowed to root in its place. These old plants have ex- 

 hausted themseh'es making runners and are worthless for fruit. 



The summer work on the strawberry beds consist largely 

 in keeping the weeds down, setting the runners, removing the 

 surplus runners and spraying. 1die wide matted row system 

 is used on practicallv all of our beds and for market i)urposes 

 we find it best, after having tried many other ways. The 

 plants are allowed to stand from four to six inches apart and 

 under these conditions make excellent fruiting crowns. 



We are now^ using a watermg system on some of our beds 

 and consider it to be the best means yet tried of distributing 

 water on a large scale; pipes are placed five or six feet above 

 the ground on posts; these pipes may be any length you re- 

 quire. Our longest side runs are 300 feet, and one-inch pipe 

 is used for this. In longer runs large pipe is recommended. 

 Every four feet these pipes are drilled and tapped to take a 

 small brass nozzle which has an opening 1-64 of an inch in 

 diameter. These nozzles are set in exactly the same line on 



