AUGUST. 



381 



Your Committee next proceeded to inspect the large field cultivators in 

 Kentucky, in Campbell County, from five to eight miles out. Messrs. Wiley, 

 Bates and John C. Youtcy cultivate, like most of the others, three kinds, 

 the Washington c r Iowa, Hovey's Seedling, and the Hudson. The number 

 of acres planted varies from about five to twenty and even thirty acres. It 

 is generally on the fresh, new soil, just cleared of the timber, and planted 

 with a half crop of corn the first year, the corn being put four or five feet, 

 and the strawberries two feet apart, in the rows. The Washington suc- 

 ceeds remarkably well on this new land; the berries are of good size; the 

 vines immensely productive, and quite early, being the first in the market. 

 At the time of the Committee's visit the fruit was nearly destroyed by the 

 great drought of this season, but the ground was literally covered with the 

 dried-up fruit. The Hovey was found most magnificently large, and very 

 fairly productive on this new land. The plants, standing comparatively 

 thin on the ground, were very large and vigorous, and resisting the great 

 drought with wonderful power. There were observed among them a con- 

 siderable quantity of both large and smaller plants, which bore no fruit. 

 These, no doubt, according to the statement of Messrs. Youtcy and Bates, 

 were the growth or runners of the last season. For the sterility of the 

 smaller it would not be difficult to account, but for that of the large sized 

 ones, it is not so easy. Messrs. Bates and Youtcy consider the cause to be 

 in the Hovey being rather less inclined to come into speedy bearing than 

 other kinds. The majority of those persons having the most experience in 

 growing this berry for market agree in deciding it to be a more certain 

 crop than the Hudson, which only in some seasons, and in new soils, is 

 very successful. The Hovey is found to withstand cold well, and great 

 heat admirably. It will succeed well on much older, but well-prepared, 

 ground, than the Hudson. While the Hovey bears drought better than 

 the Hudson, the Hudson is considered to bear frost a little better than the 

 Hovey. The Hovey is found to succeed best on a south-eastern exposure, 

 not doing so well on a northern aspect. From its large size and vigor, par- 

 ticularly of the roots, it requires especially a deep soil. The plants are put 

 in the ground in the spring, generally from the first to the last of April. 

 The impregnator most in use is what the cultivators term the Old Hudson 

 Male, which is altogether a staminate, scarcely ever bearing fruit. The 

 rows of plants are about four feet apart, and the plants are about one foot 

 apart in the rows, when not planted with corn. A male is planted about 

 every sixteen feet, and so on diagonally in the rows, being set after the 

 others, or pistillates. In putting in the sets they are planted a moderate 

 depth, (not over the crown,) and if the time of planting is dry, water is 

 sometimes poured in the hole with each plant, and then covered on top with 

 earth, to prevent the baking of the surface by the sun and winds. Fifty 

 bushels to the acre is thought a good crop. On the farm of Mr. Pye, eight 

 miles and a half back of Covington, in Kenton County, oa the Licking 

 river, with a great elevation, besides the Washington, Hovey and Hudson, 

 in very extensive cultivation, your Committee met with McAvoy's Superior, 

 on perfectly new land, on a northern exposure, the one deemed best for it 

 by Mr. Pye. Here, as elsewhere, your Committee found the berries iin- 



