Propagation 225 



a crop of fruit. It is easy to distinguish these young, 

 virgin plants from old ones by the simple fact that their 

 roots are numerous, come out from the crown and are pure 

 white, or slightly tinged with yellow. After the plant has 

 lived through one season and produced a crop of fruit these 

 roots become dark brown or black, and underneath them a 

 new set of roots is produced, which appear very early in 

 the season as tender white roots, but which soon become 

 wiry and yellowish. 



In selecting plants for propagation, such as starting a 

 new plantation, care must be exercised to secure only 

 those plants with the light colored roots close to the crown 

 and from which there are no tough, wiry, dark colored 

 roots. In this connection it is a distinct advantage to 

 secure plants from those which are known to produce good 

 crops of fruits. There is strong tendency on the part of 

 plants to inherit more or less of the fruiting habit of their 

 ancestors, and plants secured from fields which have been 

 given thorough care and which have produced large crops 

 of fruit, are far better to use than those from plantations 

 which have been neglected and which, as a consequence, 

 have produced small crops of fruit. 



In preparing to plant out a strawberry bed, it pays well 

 to obtain the plants direct from the field of some grower 

 who maintains a breeding bed, where the plants are grown 

 primarily for the production of new plants, and from which 

 the fruiting habit is well known. In case such cannot be 

 done, it will pay to maintain such a patch in your own 

 field where the plants can be given thorough care, and 

 where each mother plant can be watched in its fruit pro- 

 duction. There will be found a marked difference in the 

 fruitfulness of each individual plant in a field. Some will 

 make a large crop of large fruits, some will make a large 

 crop of small fruits, and others may be entirely barren. 

 Those plants which are least desirable in their fruiting 

 habits should be chopped out of the propagation bed, so 

 that their offspring will be eliminated in the future plan- 

 tations. 



(8) 



