H4 Success with Small Fruits. 



turned with a lathe. Many who have never tried this system would be 

 surprised to find what a change for the better it makes in the old popular 

 kinds, like the Charles Downing, Kentucky and Wilson. The Golden 

 Defiance, also, which is so vigorous in the matted beds that weeds stand 

 but little chance before it, almost doubles in size and productiveness if 

 restricted to a narrow row. 



The following remarks will have reference to this system, as I consider 

 it the best. We will start with plants that have just been set out. If 

 fruit is our aim, we should remember that the first and strongest impulse 

 of each plant will be to propagate itself; but to the degree that it does so, 

 it lessens its own vitality and power to produce berries the following 

 season. Therefore, every runner that a plant makes means so much less 

 and so much smaller fruit from that plant. Remove the runners as 

 they appear, and the life of the plant goes to make vigorous foliage 

 and a correspondingly large fruit bud. The sap is stored up as a miller 

 collects and keeps for future use the water of a stream. Moreover, a 

 plant thus curbed abounds in vitality and does not throw down its 

 burden of prematurely ripe fruit after a few hot days. It works evenly 

 and continuously, as strength only can, and leisurely perfects the last berry 

 on the vines. You will often find blossoms and ripe fruit on the same 

 plant something rarely seen where the plants are crowded and the soil 

 dry. I have had rows of Triomphe de Gand in bearing for seven weeks. 



With these facts before us, the culture of strawberries is simple 

 enough. A few days after planting, as soon as it is evident that they 

 will live, stir the surface just about them not more than half an inch deep. 

 Insist on this ; for most workmen will half hoe them out of the ground. 

 A fine-tooth rake is one of the best tools for stirring the surface merely. 

 After the plants become well rooted, keep the ground mellow and clean as 

 you would between any other hoed crop, using horse-power as far as possi- 

 ble, since it is the cheapest and most effective. If the plants have been 

 set out in spring, take off the fruit buds as soon as they appear. Unless 

 the plants are very strong, and are set out very early, fruiting the same 

 year means feebleness and often death. If berries are wanted within a 

 year, the plants must be set in summer or autumn. Then they can be 

 permitted to bear all they will the following season. A child with a 

 pair of shears or a knife, not too dull, can easily keep a large garden-plot 

 free from runners, unless there are long periods of neglect. Half an 

 hour's work once a week, in the cool of the evening, will be sufficient. A 

 boy paid at the rate of twenty-five cents a day can keep acres clipped 

 if he tries. 



