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until the spring, while it is advisable to pick them all through the 
first season from strawberries planted in the spring. The necessity 
of cutting the first runners off is obvious, as, unless this is done, the 
plants will be weakened and will not bear such a heavy crop of ber- 
ries. Advantage is thus taken of turning the energies of the plant, 
always bent on reproducing itself, in two directions, from throwing 
runners and making new plants into producing fruit-buds in abund- 
ance, which eventually will mature into a profitable crop. Once the 
plantation is well established, runners are only permitted in such 
cases as are required for propagating purposes. At the close of the 
growing season, old Jeaves are best trimmed off so as to minimise 
the spread of the leaf blight and check the harbouring of insects. 
Irrigation and Drainage—Although it is admitted by all ex- 
perienced growers that irrigation lengthens the strawberry season, 
and that a command of water in a dry spring is of great value and 
often turns into a bountiful crop one which would otherwise have 
been hopelessly shortened at a critical period of its growth, yet it is 
also recognised that irrigation presents serious objections. 
It is generally costly when undertaken on a large scale; it 
makes the ground boggy at the time when cultivation and picking 
should be actively pursued, it causes a considerable amount of decay 
of the berries. Good strawberry land, well cultivated, should not, 
if the plants be mulched, need irrigation. 
Deep underground drainage, likewise, with the object of turn- 
ing unsuitable ground into soil fit for strawberry culture, generally 
involves growers in an expenditure of time and money which is sel- 
dom compensated by an adequate increase of crop. Better not at- 
tempt growing strawberries on dry, stiff, or marshy ground than to 
attempt to remedy its natural defects by methods involving any con- 
siderable cost. 
Marketing.—Morning and evening are the best time for pick- 
ing. The fruit, picked when fully coloured and with the stalk on, 
is graded as picked and placed in light wooden punnets lined with 
vine leaves. The punnets are then placed in rows in crates, and in 
this way they are easily conveyed to market and distributed without 
further handling of the fruit. 
Little damage is caused by birds, but slugs and snails, where 
they oceur, prove a troublesome pest. 
Points or A Goop StrawBerrRyY.—Mr. F. L. Jansen, in a com- 
prehensive paper on the strawberry, published in the Agricultural 
Gazette of the Department of Agriculture, N.S.W., thus summarises 
the desiderata of a good strawberry:—“The qualities essential to a 
first-class variety are: fruit large, of a regular, firm, and nearly 
uniform size, to the end of the season; texture fine, flesh rich and 
firm, with a moderate amount of acid, and with an aromatie flavour. 
A longitudinal cut should show no hollow space; the seeds should be 
deeply embedded, and the calyx set high, so as to be easily detached. 
