THE STRAW[>>ERRY JUNE 1906 



in a shovel handle that I find is a great 

 labor-saving tool to cut the runners after 

 they have been layered and are thick 

 enough set. This can easily be sharp- 

 ened on an ordinary grind stone. 



In cultivating the bed after it lias been 

 picked, I find that to mow the vines off, 

 then burn them and narrow the rows to 

 about twehe inches is the better way. I 

 use an ordinary five-tooth cultivator, taking 

 the wide blades off and putting on 

 about one inch or one and one-fourth 

 inch blades. Spread the cultivator so it 

 will cut the soil about every six inches to 

 the depth of about two inches, then when 

 the plants start a new growth the work 

 with the hoe will not be much to 

 thin the plants to the proper number. 



We have a label which is placed on all 

 crates of fine berries that 

 has proved to be a great 

 advantage in securing a 

 good trade for our ber- 

 ries. It is a guarantee 

 for high CO 1 o r, fine 

 flavor, and for honestly 

 packed fruit. 



Bridgeton. N. J. 



Strawbp:rries 

 should be packed 

 immediately after they 

 are picked, care being 

 taken to have them the 

 same all through, not 

 allowing any larger ber- 

 ries on top than are in 

 the bottom. As soon as 

 rhey are packed place 

 carerully in the crate 

 and if to be shipped the 

 lids should be nailed on 

 at once and marked to 

 the firm which is to re- 

 ceive it. Mark on the 

 end of each crate the 

 grade it contains, 

 whether fancy or med- 

 ium. An account should 

 be opened with each dealer, charging 

 him with the number of cases of both 

 fancy and medium berries shipped each 

 day; then when he remits you easily can 

 compare his report of sales with your 

 books, and should there be an error it 

 will easily be located and the dealer will 

 gladly rectify the mistake. It doesn't 

 pay to do business without a set of books. 



PVERYBODY ought to have all the 

 ■•-' strawberries he wants. If he does 

 not care to grow them, he ought to be in 

 some business so that he can afford to buy 

 them quart after quart, morning, noon and 

 night. Not only because they give en- 

 joyment, but because they are the cheap- 

 est, best and most natural medicine to 

 tone up the system that has ever been in- 

 vented. They are both food and drink. 

 The man who cannot afford to give up 



his beer, tea and coffee, yes, and tobacco, 

 too, when strawberries are plenty and 

 cheap, is a man to be pitied. — A. I. Root. 



Strawberries In Northern Michigan 



WE have called attention frequently 

 to the large opportunities that 

 are opening up to strawberry 

 growers in the Northern states. The de- 

 mand of our great metropolitan centers 

 for fresh fruit is practically unlimited, and 

 the man who can supply the delicious 

 strawberry at any season of the year never 

 need want for an opportunity to develop 

 his energies. There are millions of acres 

 in northern Michigan and Wisconsin 

 which lend themselves naturally to the 



SOME NORTHERN MICHIGAN STRAWBERRIES 



development of great enterprises along 

 this line, and many a poor man who to- 

 day is working for a low wage, or finding 

 it quite impossible to secure steady em- 

 ployment at any wage, would find in 

 either of these states chances to build up 

 an independent business and a productive 

 home that, even with his limited resources, 

 he might take advantage of. 



We are showing on this page an illus- 

 tration of what may be done in northern 

 Michigan in the wa\- of growing beautiful 

 strawberries. This illustration is sent us 

 courteously by the publisher of our es- 

 teemed contemporary, The Northwestern 

 Farmer, published at Menominee, Mich- 

 igan. You will nut find anything finer 

 grown anywhere and you may imagine 

 what it would mean if the enterprising 

 growers of these northerly states should 

 send several carloads of such fruit into 

 Chicago, Milwaukee, Minneapolis and 



Page 127 



St. Paul, sometime about the 10th of 



July! 



We cannot too seriously urge upon our 

 Northern friends the consideration of this 

 subject, and that they develop this extra- 

 ordinary opportunity. Late varieties, 

 given ideal cultivation, ought to bring 

 more money per acre than that received 

 by our friends of the South. The picture 

 indeed is a suggestive one, considered 

 from this point of view. 



'^ ^ 



ONEfeatureof the strawberry business 

 that is most favorable to its larger 

 development is the ability of this popular 

 fruit to adapt itself to almost any environ- 

 ment of soil and climate. Away up on 

 the sides of the Alps, where snow lingers 

 until the summer suns 

 are at their hottest, the 

 strawberry thrives and 

 yields generous crops of 

 delicious sweetness. And 

 when we go down to 

 tropical Cuba we find 

 that there the strawberry 

 grows and thrives. It 

 grows and prospers in 

 the sandiest soils and 

 yields large crops in the 

 heaviest of c 1 a y . It 

 abounds where the rain- 

 fall is excessive and 

 manages to maintain ex- 

 istence on the drought 

 line. Under these cir- 

 cumstances, it must be 

 clear to all that where 

 proper cultural methods 

 are given, where moist- 

 ure is conserved in the 

 soil, or on the other 

 hand, where the low 

 grounds are thoroughly 

 under-drained — w here 

 these proper conditions 

 are furnished to strong 

 and vigorous plants, suc- 

 cess is bound to follow. 

 One correspondent recently called at- 

 tention of The Strawberry to the inter- 

 esting fact that vast fortunes may not 

 be made in strawberry culture, but 

 that a comfortable fortune is insured to 

 the man who grows them successfully. 

 This is an ideal life. "Give me neither 

 poverty nor riches" was the prayer of the 

 wise Hebrew of old. It is the true phil- 

 osophy of life, and he who eomes in daily 

 touch with nature and finds in the tilling 

 of the soil and the cultivatioh of its crops 

 a source of support is indeed most for- 

 tunate, and should consider himself blest 

 above all others. 



A DOCTOR in Buffalo declares that 

 ■*^ strawberries and cream and short- 

 cake made from the fruit are responsible 

 for the summer increase of insanity. He 

 must take his "berries" in liquid form. 



