OUR COIESPONDENCE SCHOOL^^k.OF STRAWBERRY CULTURE 



WHERE THE MEMBERS OF THE 

 SCHOOL AND THE INSTRUCTOR 

 IN CULTURAL METHODS MEET 



PRACTICAL LESSONS TAUGHT 

 PERTAINING TO THE SCIENCE 

 OF STRAWBERRY PRODUCTION 



IN all the history of American horti- 

 culture there has been no more try- 

 ing season than that of the spring of 

 1907. This is no more true of straw- 

 berry growing than of all other lines of 

 horticulture, but we have taken special 

 note of conditions relating to the straw- 

 berry, and it is remarkable how widespread 

 and universal have been the complaints 

 concerning the influence of the weather 

 upon the strawberry crop. Although spring 

 was ushered in with a temperature of 64 

 degrees at Chicago and the promise that 

 winter would soon give way to the sun- 

 shine and warmth of spring, freezing and 

 thawing weather alternated over large sec- 

 tions of the country until the close of May. 

 One of the enthusiastic friends of The 

 Strawberry wrote us that his beautiful field 

 of strawberries, an illustration of which 

 adorned the cover page of The Strawberry 

 for September, 1906, was quite destroyed 

 by a heavy frost May 26, 1907. Thus it 

 will be seen that not only has it been diffi- 

 cult for new-set plants to retain their hold 

 upon life, or take firm grip upon their 

 new environment, but that old and well- 

 established strawberry beds have been 

 quite destroyed, or at least the crop of 

 fruit has been lost or seriously reduced, as 

 a result of the remarkable weather condi- 

 tions which so long prevailed. And this 

 is true of all the states extending as far 

 south as Tennessee, Maryland and the 

 southern portions of Kansas and Missouri. 

 From one of our friends who has a 

 famous fruit farm in the garden spot of 

 Illinois, we have just received a letter 

 which contains the following: "Our as- 

 paragus has been no good. Plums and 

 cherries frozen, and now it begins to look 

 as if the pollen is to be washed out of the 

 strawberries. Red raspberries are killed, 

 and most of the tomato plants blackened 

 with frost. We still have some apples 

 and peaches hanging on, and the chicken 

 crop is good; and we shall hope for the 

 strawberries until all hope is gone." 



And yet, notwithstanding these dis- 

 couraging conditions, reports received al- 

 most up to the time of going to press with 

 the present issue, indicates that where 

 plants have managed to pull through un- 

 der these conditions, they have thrived 

 splendidly, and give promise of great re- 

 turns in 1908. Never in the history of 

 The Strawberry farm have plants looked 

 better than at the present writing, and there 

 is a thriftiness and strength in them that 

 gives promise of splendid results. We are 

 glad to say that reports indicate that this 

 is very general, notwithstanding the sense 

 of loss and disappointment occasioned by 



the havoc wrought by the long-continued 

 season of cold winds, cold rains, and ex- 

 traordinarily low temperatures. 



Nor has the peculiar season affected 

 horticulture alone, but in the great fields 

 of extensive agriculture, losses have been 

 very heavy from the causes named. Tex- 

 as, Kansas, and indeed all of the great 

 Southwest, have been seriously affected in 

 this way. The planting of wheat was so 

 long delayed in the great cereal sections 

 of the Northwest as to render a shortage 

 in the wheat-crop almost certain, and in 

 the cornbelt the golden cereal is not as far 

 advanced as it normally would have been 

 a month or more ago. 



So whatever disappointments our straw- 

 berry friends may have suffered, there still 

 is much to be thankful for. The simple 

 fact that the season is the worst of its kind 

 ever known is of itself a promise that we 

 need not expect a recurrence of these con- 

 ditions for many a year. We hope that 

 every member of this school will go about 

 his work determined to make the best of 

 conditions as they are, confident that in 

 nine years out of ten, he is sure of success 

 if he follows faithfully the instructions re- 

 ceived here. Whatever the crop may be 

 this year, let us all resolve that we shall 

 go on with our work, determined to make 

 the season of 1908 repay us, at least in 

 part, for the disappointments of 1907. 



A. B. R., Fiskeville, R. I. I send you here- 

 with blossom from my strawberry plants. 

 Will )'ou please tell me what the matter is 

 with it? What causes it to blast and what is 

 the remedy? 



Some of the blooms you sent us are 

 affected with some kind of fungus, which 

 causes the center cone of the bloom to 

 dry up. Quite often the first bloom of 

 any variety of strawberries will be affected 

 in this way, but it very seldom injures the 

 crop of berries. Spraying with Bordeaux 

 mixture in the usual way will quite often 

 prevent this trouble. 



J. J. F. , Slayton, Minn. Aitev mixing Bor- 

 deaux I find considerable sediment at the 

 bottom. Should this be placed in the spray- 

 ing machine and agitated, or should the clear 

 liquid be racked off and the sediment thrown 

 out? 



The sediment of which you speak never 

 should be permitted to settle in any large 

 quantity to the bottom, but you should 

 keep the entire mixture thoroughly agita- 

 ted at all times while you are making the 



P»«e 163 



application. It is this sediment which 

 holds the poisonous matter upon the 

 foliage of the plants and makes it effective. 

 Where this sediment fails to go with the 

 fluid matter the latter quickly evaporates 

 and becomes non-effective. After the 

 spraying your plants should be covered 

 with a whitish substance, showing that the 

 sediment has been carried to the leaf in 

 large quantities. In other words, the loss 

 of the sediment practically would mean 

 that the spraying was of little value. 



L. M. B., Tonerhill, 111. Last spring I set out 

 a patch of about one acre of strawberries, tak- 

 ing the plants from the patch that was set out 

 the year before. They did well and they 

 look nice and thrifty, but they are not full of 

 bloom as they should be. Would a fertilizer 

 do them any good, or can you account for 

 their not bearing? 



The poor showing made by your plants 

 is due to the fact that you took them from 

 a bed that had fruited one year. This is 

 very bad practice, as the strain of fruiting 

 causes the plants to deteriorate through 

 pollen exhaustion and seed production. 

 Plants should always be taken from a bed 

 where the plants are grown for propagat- 

 ing purposes only. It would do no good 

 to fertilize your plants so late in the sea- 

 son. The buds are all made in the fall, 

 and all the fertilizer you would use on 

 plants in the spring would not increase the 

 number of fruit-buds. Nitrate of soda, 

 properly applied, will increase the foliage, 

 which also increases the size of the fruit, 

 making more quarts, but it does not in- 

 crease the number of berries. 



J. \V. S. , Bethel, \'t. My strawberries are just 

 beginning to bloom and I notice that that part 

 of the blossom which is to become the fruit has 

 turned black, some are still green but partly 

 eaten. Small ants and numerous other insects 

 are around and on the blossoms 



2. Would the application of liquified hen 

 manure the first season and the second up to 

 the time of blossoming (a mild solution, of 

 course j) be an ad\'antage? 



3. Why is it not advisable to water plants 

 immediately after setting in dry weather? 



The bloom enclosed in your letter, hav- 

 ing a black center were affected with some 

 fungous growth before they became fully 

 developed. Some scientists claim that this 

 is caused by a small mite working upon 

 the cone of the flower, but am confident 

 that it is caused by blight, or sort of smut. 

 Spraying the fruiting bed with Bordeaux 



