THE STRAWBERRY APRIL 1906 



perfume? Any young man can start out 

 with a few thousand strawberry plants 

 and two or three hundred grape vines, 

 other fruits and some pouhry in reason- 

 able proximity to a good market and 

 make a good living and save some money. 



Maylene, Ala. 



Berry-Growing Among the Firs 



By Wm. L. Cochran 



1CAME here about four years ago 

 and bought a few acres of what is 

 called logged-otT land. That means 

 land from which the saw-logs have been 

 taken. But the loggers left the stumps 

 and tops and lots of other bulky stuff for 

 the ranchers to wrestle with, and "clear- 

 ing" is a serious problem where the tim- 

 ber is as big as it is here. 



I had been told that strawberries al- 

 ways did finely on new land here, so the 

 next day after I had bought the place I 

 sent East for some strawberry plants. I 

 had found a place about thirty rods away 

 from where I was clearing, where, by 

 snaking off a couple of tree tops, I had 

 ground enough to plant the strawberries 

 and they were out of my way. When 

 the plants came the little piece was 

 plowed and I set them right away. 

 Then I got busy again clearing and build- 

 ing a house and making a fence, and I 

 thought but little of my strawberries and 

 still less about cultivating them. Finally, 

 one day about three weeks after I had 

 planted the berries, I thought I would go 

 and see how they were coming, but I 

 couldn't find them, as the ferns had come 

 up about as thick as hair on a dog and 

 were two feet high. I simply let them 

 go as they were for about six weeks 

 longer and then I went into the patch 

 with a team and a plow and a chain; and 

 turned them under with the rest of the 

 weeds. 



Well, even that experience was not en- 

 tirely without benefits, because I realized 



— yes, really realized — that if I was to 

 raise strawberries in this weedy country I 

 had to attend strictly to the strawberry 

 business. So the next spring I again sent 

 to the same place for some more pedigree 

 plants, secured some alley plants from my 

 neighbors, and as I had a nice little clear- 

 ing by that time I set out a little more 

 than one-eighth of an acre. I kept them 

 fairly well cultivated and rigidly restricted 

 as to buds and blossoms, but not so well 

 restricted as to runners, as I let the latter 

 get the start of me twice and had to cut 

 off too much foliage at the expense of the 

 crowns. That was the patch I got my 

 berries from last summer, and notwith- 

 standing all my blunders, I had the hnest 

 crop I ever raised. And everybody that 

 saw them said they beat anything they 

 ever saw. But the pedigree plants were 

 the ones that shone. They bore three 

 times as many berries as the others and 

 were very much larger and better fruit. 

 I had no trouble selling all the berries I 

 had and do not think it will be possible 

 for me to raise more than I can sell at 

 any time. I am going to increase my 

 acreage as fast as I can. 



Last spring I set out to see how good 

 a job I could do in berry raising. I ma- 

 nured a piece of ground very heavily with 

 stable manure and plowed it under, then 

 I cultivated it four times with a double- 

 shovel plow and repeated the operation 

 with a hve-tooth cultivator, and sowed 

 muriate of potash by hand at the rate of 

 200 pounds per acre; dragged the field 

 once each way with a spike-tooth drag 

 and I had the best seed bed I ever 

 planted. I set it to strawberry plants of 

 my own propagating from the selected 

 plants received and planted the year be- 

 fore. The field shown herewith is the 

 one 1 refer to. It was set out in March, 

 1905, and the photograph was taken 

 August 4, only a little more than four 

 months after setting. Of course, I don't 

 know how they are going to pan out, but 



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I look for a bumper crop when they are 



ripe. 



Snohomish, Wash. 



THE fanner at the Minnesota state 

 training school at Red Wing, J. A. 

 Smith, reports that last year the institu- 

 tion raised 3,600 quarts of strawberries on 

 a small patch of three quarters of an acre. 



MR. COCHRAN'S HOME AT SNOHOMISH 



THE STRAWBERRY PATCH 'MID THE GIANT FIR STUMPS 



Page 90 



