THE STRAWBERRY MAY 1907 



reports from the South indicate that al- 

 ready the experimental stage has been 

 passed, and that the growers are so ar- 

 ranging their systems of planting, cultivat- 

 ing, picking and marketing as to insure 

 regularity and permanency. Acreage is 

 being graduated to the conditions of the 

 particular neighborhood, organizations are 

 formed and forming under whose admin- 

 istration there must be uniform grading of 

 fruit, and marketing is so conducted as to 

 secure an evener distribution of the pro- 

 duct and better prices. That there is as 

 wide an opportunity in the North, where 

 late varieties may be grown and a hungry 

 public supplied weeks after the Southern 

 crop has been consumed, we have the ut- 

 most confidence, and we need not say that 

 we hope to see this great opportunity 

 utilized to the full. 



One Doctor's Experience with 

 Strawberries 



By W. H. Terrell, M. D. 



IN January, 1904, after reading "Great 

 Crops of Strawberries and How to 

 Grow Them" I decided to send for 

 some plants and try my hand at growing 

 berries. At that time I lived in Stilesville, 

 Ind., a small town of some four hundred 

 people, four miles from the railroad. I 

 am a practicing physician and at times, 

 especially in the summer season, have 

 quite a little leisure time from professional 

 work. I always had cultivated a garden 

 each summer for several years. Being a 

 lover of plant life, I took great pleasure 

 in working with the plants and vegetables. 

 But I never had grown strawberries. I 

 had only a small piece of ground at my 

 command, so I ordered 500 plants, con- 

 sisting of the following varieties: Warfield, 

 Excelsior, August Luther, Tennessee Pro- 

 lific, Haverland, Splendid, Sample and 

 Brandywine. 



The plants came to hand about the 1st 

 of April in good condition, but I did not 

 get them set until about the middle of 

 April, owing to a spell of wet weather at 

 that time. I got them planted in fine 

 condition and they started right out to 

 growing. The soil was fertile and well 

 drained, having been used as a garden, 

 and it had been well manured that winter. 

 They were set in single-hedge rows. The 

 rows were two and one-half feet apart and 

 the plants two feet apart in the row. 

 There were twenty rows fifty feet long, 

 thus makmg a plot fifty feet square. Each 

 plant was allowed to form two runners, 

 one on either side. Al other runners 

 were kept cut off, except a strip about six 

 feet wide across one end of the rows where 

 they were allowed to become tolerably 

 thickly matted, to make plants for next 

 year. 



The plants were well cultivated with 

 hand-plow and hoe on an average of once 

 a week during the entire season. All 



bloom buds were kept cut off as fast as 

 they appeared that summer. The plants 

 made a splendid growth that season, and 

 when the ground froze they were well 

 mulched with straw. They went through 

 the winter in fine shape and in the spring 

 they started out for business. It was a 

 fine sight to see them loaded with bloom, 

 and then the fine large berries that fairly 

 crowded one another for room. That 

 season we picked 500 quarts of berries 

 besides what were eaten while picking — 

 and that was no small quantity. I am 

 confident that there would have been fifty 

 or seventy-five more quarts had the plants 

 not been allowed to mat at the ends of the 

 rows as spoken of above. They were too 

 thick there to make many berries. We 

 sold $24 worth of berries from the patch 

 that season beside what we ate and canned 

 up, and we had all we wanted to eat — a 

 family of six — at every meal and between 

 meals; and we are all lovers of strawber- 

 ries. We sold all we had for sale, at ten 

 and fifteen cents per quart in our little 

 town, and could have sold more. We 

 also sold $13.50 cents worth of plants 

 that spring. 



At the end of the fruiting season the 

 vines were mowed off and burned. The 

 plants were well cultivated during the re- 

 mainder of the summer and fall. They 

 made a splendid growth and in the spring 

 of 1906 bade fair to do better than the 

 previous summer. The ends of the rows 

 where the plants were too thick had been 

 thinned out. Just after the bloom fell, 

 and when the berries began to form and 

 grow, a dry spell came on, one of the 

 worst for this country and time of year, 

 that we ever have known. I thought the 

 crop of berries would be ruined, but finally 

 rain came, too late to do the good it 

 would have done earlier, but not too late 

 to keep them from making some fine ber- 

 ries. We picked from the patch that 

 season 508 quarts beside what were eaten 

 in picking. We sold $30 worth of ber- 

 ries after having all we wanted to eat and 

 preserve. 



This is an account of my first experience 

 at strawberry culture. I did all the cul- 

 tivating of the plants and seeing after 

 them during leisure hours from my pro- 

 fessional work. I am a subscriber to The 

 Strawberry and read it with a great deal 

 of pleasure each month. If you think 

 this narrative, or any part of it, of suffi- 

 cient interest to publish in The Strawberry 

 you may do so. Pitisboro, ind. 



We certainly do regard this little nar- 

 rative of interest and of great value as 

 well. Dr. Terrell has told it in such a 

 way that others will understand the basis 

 of his success, and it should not fail to 

 inspire them to try their hand in this work. 

 To sell $67 worth of produce from ap- 

 proximately one-twentieth of an acre of 

 ground in two seasons, besides supplying 

 a family of six with all the delicious straw- 

 Page 118 



berries they could eat; to produce a big 

 crop under conditions such as were created 

 by the unprecedented heat and drouth of 

 1906 — to do all this from an investment 

 in 500 plants is a record most encourag- 

 ing, and the Doctor need not hesitate to 

 engage in the work on a more extended 

 scale. And add to all his material returns 

 the joy that a nature-lover would get out 

 of his experience — well, no one may meas- 

 ure that; it is of incalculable value, and 

 beyond all cash returns. — Editor The 

 Strawberry. 



^ <^ 



From Shoes to Strawberries 



By A. D. Stoneman 



1HAVE been a reader of The Straw- 

 berry from almost the first number, 

 and it is to me almost the same as my 

 bread and butter; and like others of the 

 many readers of the paper, I think I am 

 asked to give in my testimony and exper- 

 ience the same as we are asked to testify 

 in a Methodist class meeting. For many 

 years I had been in the shoe trade until a 

 couple of years ago I traded off my stock 

 of goods and am now a happy man, as I 

 am growing and selling strawberries and 

 raspberries. 



While I was yet in the shoe trade I 

 purchased a small piece of ground — about 

 four acres — with the intention of working 

 it by raising vegetables, etc., for the close 

 confinement to the store and shoe bench 

 made necessary plenty of out-door exer- 

 cise. Along with other stuff to grow on 

 the ground I thought to set out a small 

 strawberry patch and also a few raspber- 

 ries — a piece about the size of a town lot, 

 50 by 150 feet. That was four years ago. 

 Do you know, that little piece of ground 

 hypnotized or converted me, and now I 

 have the whole four acres in strawberries 

 and raspberries, or will have this spring, 

 as I plowed up one-half of it last fall 

 which I had in strawberries for two sea- 

 sons and a little of it for four seasons. 

 The white grub got into them and de- 

 stroyed most of them. Then, too, I think 

 it a good plan to plow up a patch after it 

 has grown a crop for two or three years 

 and put the ground into potatoes or beans 

 for a season or two. 



Now I put my berries in somewhat dif- 

 ferently from other growers. My ground 

 is quite high— some forty feet above water 

 level, the river runs quite close to it. The 

 soil is a sandy loam with a clay subsoil, 

 just an ideal piece of land, I think, for 

 berries. The wind from the northwest 

 has quite a sweep across it, as the timber 

 was all cleared away some years ago; so, 

 to keep the wind from blowing off the 

 mulching I put a stop to that by planting 

 three or four rows of raspberries of either 

 kind and then six or seven rows of straw- 

 berries, running the rows north and south 

 so that I stop the straw from blowing 

 away; also catching the snow which drifts 

 in, and I think it a number two mulching. 



