CHAPTER XIX. 



STRAWBERRY GROWING UNDER GLASS. 



When properly handled, few greenhouse crops will 

 afford more interest and pleasure to the amateur, or 

 more profit to the commercial grower, than the straw- 

 berry when grown as a winter crop under glass. The 

 requirements are a well-lighted house, in which a tem- 

 perature of 65 degrees can be maintained during Feb- 

 ruary and March, and where the plants can be placed 

 near the glass. 



The plants should be obtained from plantations set 

 early in the spring previous, or in July or August of the 

 year before and not allowed to fruit, by layering the first 

 runners that form in July, in two and one-half or three- 

 inch pots that have been plunged near them. Unless 

 the soil is a rich, sandy loam, the pots should be filled 

 with good compost. In about two weeks the pots will 

 be occupied by roots, and the plants should then be 

 repotted into four-inch pots and placed in a cold frame. 

 Here they should be kept during the fall, requiring 

 careful attention in watering, and being repotted to five 

 inch and again to six-inch pots, which should be the fruit- 

 ing size, as soon as the smaller sizes have become filled with 

 roots. If, at any time, leaf blight or any other fungous 

 disease appears upon them, the plants should be sprayed 

 with Bordeaux mixture. 



In order to force successfully, the plants must form 

 strong crowns and harden them before winter comes on. 

 As freezing weather approaches, the frames should be 

 covered with glass, to prevent the breaking of the pots 



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