OUR CORRESPONDENCE SCH00Lr'2!ll,0F STRAWBERRY CULTURE 



WHERE THE MEMBERS OP THE 

 SCHOOL AND THE INSTRUCTOR 

 IN CULTURAL METHODS MEET 



PRACTICAL LESSONS TAUGHT 

 PERTAINING TO THE SCIENCE 

 OF STRAWBERRY PRODUCTION 



HE NEW YEAR opens 

 most auspiciously for the 

 Correspondence School, 

 and we welcome to this, 

 its first session for 1907, 

 not only the splendid host 

 that was with us through- 

 out the year just ended, but another host 

 of new members, apparently quite as en- 

 thusiastic as those we have come to know 

 and appreciate so highly through the ex- 

 periences of the past twelvemonth. 



Our Christmas was made a merry one 

 by the receipt of letters from all over the 

 country, a countless number of them 

 sending not only their own renewals of 

 membership, but making a "Christmas 

 Gift" to some friend of an annual mem- 

 bership as well. Here is a letter, typical 

 of hundreds which come to us, from 

 Chas. C. Jones of Amesbury, Mass.: 



I have just finished reading the last issue of 

 The Strawberry from cover to cover, as I al- 

 ways do, and as I would as soon think now of 

 raising strawberries without a hoe as without 

 your wonderful publication, I hasten to renew 

 my subscription. I am sending the gift sub- 

 scription to my brother, who is principal of a 

 seminary in Maine, to be placed in the reading 

 room where many farmers' sons and daughters 

 will have a chance to peruse it. If it pro\e the 

 means of starting some of them in the direction 

 of strawberry culture I shall be very glad. 



I am not an old grower, neither a new one, as 

 I have grown them as a side issue for ten years. 

 I am now working to give up everything else 

 and make strawberries my specialty. I have 

 found every department of your paper very 

 helpful. 



Thanking you for the help of the last year, I 

 am, Yours truly, 



Chas. E. Jones. 



That is the spirit that is bound to make 

 this school a complete success in e\ery 

 respect, and it inspires the schoolmaster 

 with new courage and new determination 

 and makes him more confident than ever 

 of the future of the institution in its rela- 

 tion to its members and the results they 

 may be enabled to achieve. 



Another member, J. R. Benton of 

 Clinton, N. Y., in the course of a cheery 

 letter says: "Your paper is beyond criti- 

 cism. It not only educates but inspires 

 one interested to do things as well as plan 

 them." 



That is just the point. Planning is a 

 very important thing, and the man who 

 does not plan his work before setting out 

 to do it makes a very serious mistake. 

 On the other hand, the man who does 

 nothing but plan never will get very far 

 on the highway of success. What we 

 seek is to get people to do things, for it is 

 the people who do things that make the 



wheels of this old world of ours go 'round. 



Rii^ht at the bej^'inning of the year we 

 want to say something that grows out of 

 the experience of the past. We receive 

 a great many inquiries toward the latter 

 part of each month asking that answers 

 to these inquiries appear in the next 

 month's issue. Now as a matter of fact. 

 The Strawberry is already so big a publi- 

 cation and puts out so many copies, and 

 has to do its printing so carefully in order 

 to make the handsome appearance it does, 

 that the first forms of each issue must be 

 at press by the middle of the month pre- 

 ceding issue. That is to say, the Feb- 

 ruary issue must be at press with some of 

 its pages by the 15th of January, and so 

 on. We wish that every member would 

 try to get his questions into our hands not 

 later than the 10th of the month if he 

 wishes them to appear in the succeeding 

 month's issue. 



Now let's settle right down into the 

 harness and pull together for bigger and 

 better and nobler results in 1907 than 

 ever we dreamed of in the past. We 

 shall do our best to keep up our end, and 

 we want you to be right with us, shoulder 

 to shoulder — and what a team we shall 

 make! 



H. A. H., Independence, la. Have you ever 

 noticed any difference in planting rows of 

 strawberries north and south and east and west? 



great difference. We always prefer mak- 

 ing the rows north and south if possible. 

 This gives the sun a little better chance 

 at all of the berries all through the foliage. 

 However, if the patch is small, the rows 

 should run the way that they will be the 

 longest, which will avoid a great deal of 

 turning while cultivating. 



N. F. G., Geary, Olcla. I do not understand 

 your answer to C. F. P., Tecumseh, Mich, 

 in the November issue in regard to keeping 

 the runners off. As your reply reads it would 

 seem that a new "double-hedge" row was to 

 be formed each year. My understanding had 

 been that the double-hedge row was to be 

 formed the first year the plants were put out 

 and that the plants grown in this manner ne:e 

 to be retained as long as the patch was fruited 

 (two years). 



2. Then your advice that a fruiting bed 

 should not be used for a propagating bed 

 seems to be contradictory, as you recommend 

 taking up new plants grown from runners and 

 filling in vacancies. Possibly I do not have a 

 correct understanding of a propagating bed. 

 I certainly am getting much information from 

 your instructions though. 



After the first crop of berries has been 

 picked vines should be mowed over and, 

 if conditions are favorable, burned when 

 dry. When this has been done, and the 

 double-hedge row system is followed, you 

 should throw a furrow, cutting the soil 

 from each side of the row. This will 

 leave the plants in the original hedge row 



THIRD PRIZE WINNER IN THE STRAWBERRY PHOTOGRAPHIC CONTEST 

 C. W. Gordon and His Beautiful Strawberry Field at Montville, N. J. 



We have experimented a great deal 

 with rows running north and south, and 

 east and west, but never have noticed any 



Pace 19 



