THE STRAWBERRY APRIL 1907 



BERRY BOXES 

 BERRY CRATES 



In flat or made up. AH kinds of 



BASKETS 



BEST GOODS RIGHT PRICES 



Send postal card for catalogue 



Colby-Hinkley Company 



BENTON HARBOR, MICHIGAN 



being six or eight inches in the row from 

 the other. 



4. To make spraying effective, you 

 should start spraying just as soon as growth 

 starts in the spring, and repeat the spraying 

 about every ten or fifteen days. 



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G. F. G., Hornellsville, N. Y. I have ten 

 acres of ground just outside a city of 15,000 

 population. It is a railroad town and there 

 is a good market for everything you can grow, 

 but my land is on a hill; fairly level when you 

 get to it, but it is almost impossible to get 

 stable manure up to it. I have an acre sowed 

 to rye last fall. It has made a splendid 

 growth and completely covers the ground. 

 It has had no stable manure nor will it get 

 any. What I would like to know is if I 

 plowed that rye under good and deep in the 

 spring and gave it a good heavy dressing of a 

 high-grade fertilizer that would analyze 3-8- 

 12—1,500 to 2,000 pounds to the acre — would 

 1 not get good results, other conditions being 

 all right, with all that rye in the bottom and 

 that fertilizer thoroughly worked in on top? 

 2. It is hard for me to get mulch. Would 

 an acre of buckwheat straw not threshed and 

 cut before the kernel is formed mulch an acre 

 of strawberries? Also, if I were to sow corn 

 very thick, broadcast, so it would grow small, 

 would that do for a mulch? 



Your situation is an admirable one for 

 carrying on a successful strawberry busi- 

 ness, and as the "lay of the land" in one 

 that does not admit of the use of stable 

 manure, you certainly should carry out 

 the plan as you suggest. Being located 

 on such highland will keep your bloom 

 safe from frost. It will be a good plan 

 for you to build up your land by growing 

 cowpeas, depending upon them to renovate 

 the soil and furnish it with humus and 

 nitrogen, and then apply commercial fer- 

 tilizer as you indicate is your decision. 

 Under such treatment you should be able 



to bring your land into perfect condition 

 for strawberry production. 



2. An acre of buckwheat grown as you 

 suggest should supply mulch for an acre 

 of strawberries, if the straw be applied with 

 care and economy. We think the buck- 

 wheat will be fully as good as sown corn. 



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C. F. P., Tecumseh, Mich. Supposing one 

 decides to look only for the particular trade, 

 and so picks only the best or largest berries, 

 leaving the small ones in the patch; does the 

 leaving of these small berries on the vines in 

 a<ny\'3.y injure the strawberry plant for this 

 or for future bearing periods? 

 2. You speak in your "experience" articles 

 about the marketing of fancy fruit — what in 

 your experience was the best way to get this 

 result — by sorting out bad and under-ripe 

 berries after they were picked; or by employ- 

 ing pickers on whom you could rely to pick 

 the kind of berries only that you direct them 

 to pick? I sorted my berries last season but 

 found it a rather tedious proposition. 



Where one is catering to a trade that is 



willing to pay a big price for fancy berries, 

 the best way is to pack the fancy berries 

 separately and sell them under a guarantee- 

 label. Instead of leaving the small berries 

 in the patch they should be gathered and 

 sold to those who desire to purchase less 

 costly berries for canning purposes. One 

 may always secure a large enough price 

 from such fruit to leave a fair profit after 

 paying expenses of picking, besides reliev- 

 ing the vines of the berries. The longer 

 berries remain on the vines the more 

 strength do they draw from the vines. 

 Seed production is a great strain upon 

 plants. 



2. The best way to grade berries is to 

 have the pickers do the work in the field. 

 They can pick all the fancy berries from 

 a hill and before moving on to the next 

 hill they can pick the second grades and 

 put them in a box by themselves. This 

 avoids rehandling the berries after they 

 reach the packing house. This is impor- 

 tant, as berries should be handled as little 

 as possible. 



And we may remark in passing that it 

 is the man who caters to a particular line 



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Ps«e 112 



