10 



should be remembered, when renovating the bed, that it is not necessary to leave many 

 plants. Plants left sixteen to twenty inches apart should make a good row by autumn. 

 Those left should be the youngest and strongest. It is a good plan when renewing, 

 to work in some short rotted manure to improve the soil. 



Irrigation. 



During the fruiting season the strawberry needs a large supply of moisture to 

 give maximum crops. In some seasons, owing to dry weather, the crop is reduced 

 \'ery much, the season is shortened and the profits are small. If, under those condi- 

 tions, there were available a supplementary supply of water which could be used for 

 irrigating, a marked improvement in the crop would be ensured in many cases. 



Varieties. 



It occasionally happens that a person who has a variety of strawberry which 

 yields much better with him than other varieties which he has growing alongside, 

 concludes to discard all other kinds and grow that one variety. He does so, and is 

 disappointed to find that he has very few berries, and these ill-shaped and worthless. 

 He does not know what to think about it, but writes to the Experimental Farm to 

 learn what is the. matter. The reply is sent back : ' Are you aware that the flowers of 

 strawberries may be perfect or imperfect, or bisexual and pistillate; in other words, 

 do you know that some varieties of strawberries produce blossoms which have both 

 male and female organs, while other varieties have only female organs ? It you do 

 not, the solution of your difficulty is very easy.' 



The male and female organs in plants perform the same functions as in animals. 

 The fine dust formed on the stamens, wliich is shed when the flower is in bloom, is 

 the fertilizing agent, which falls on the pistil and fertilization takes place. If the 

 stamens are absent, or nearly all absent, as is the case in imperfect or pistillate flowers, 

 no fruit, or very little fruit, is formed. If a perfect, or bisexual flowering variety, and 

 an imperfect flowering variety are growing in close proximity, the flowers on both 

 will be fertilized as insects and the wind carry the poUem or dust from the perfect to 

 the imperfect flowers. It very often happens that the imperfect flowering varieties 

 produce the best crops when properly pollinated, and this experience may lead fruit 

 growers who are ignorant of the foregoing fact to the mistake of planting only one 

 variety, which may be imperfect. 



A row of a perfect flowering sort should be planted to about every two to four 

 rows of an imperfect variety for good results. The proportion will depend on the 

 amount of pollen produced by the perfect sort. Of course, it is not necessary to plant 

 an imperfect variety at all, as there are plenty of good sorts which have perfect 

 flowers. It is essential to have the perfect and imperfect varieties in full bloom at 

 the same time, as, if the former bloomed before the latter, there would be no object in 

 planting it as a pollinator. 



Owing to the ease with which a new variety of strawberry is originated and the 

 short time it takes to fruit the same, the number of new sorts each year in America 

 is very large. Only a small proportion of those which are produced are better than 



