Vlll 



AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



July, 1908 



Ceilings 



A concrete tank erected on estate of Edmund Tatham, 

 Katonah, New York 



Frederick J. Sterner, Architect - - New York 

 De Lancey A. Cameron, Builder - - New York 



Tank designed for storage supply of 15,000 gallons, 

 built entirely of concrete reinforced with Clinton welded 

 wire. Before roof was placed over tank, and during 

 winter months, ice 10 inches thick formed on water 

 stored therein. No cracks or leakage have developed. 



Clinton Wire Cloth Company 



CLINTON, MASS. 



FIREPR00FIN0 DEPARTMENT 



ALBERT OLIVER 



1 MADISON AVE., NEW YORK 



washington : rosslyn supply co., colorado bui10inq 

 syracuse. n. y.: parao0n plaster co. 

 st. lo u i s : hunkins-willis lime &. cement co., south end 1 8th st. bridge 

 san francisco! l. a. norris, 835 m0nadn0ck building 

 Seattle: l a. norris, 909 Alaska buildino 



Parti- 

 tions 



"LANE'S BALL-BEARING" 



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is the 



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Lane Brotners Company, 434-466 Prospect Street, Pougkkeepsie, N. Y. 



INTENSIVE STRAWBERRY 

 CULTURE 



By George H. Sinclair 



TO THE man with a small garden the 

 problem of harvesting the greatest quan- 

 tity from the minimum area of ground 

 is ever present and intensely interesting. In 

 this connection my experience in intensive 

 strawberry culture may be of help to one so 

 situated. 



My plot of ground for berries was twenty 

 by thirty feet, and varieties grown were three 

 in number, Charles Downing, Kentucky and 

 an unnamed seedling. The plants were set 

 late in June on a rainy day — as soon as I 

 could get new plants after fruiting — in rows 

 twenty inches apart and fifteen inches between 

 plants in the row. Not quite one hundred 

 plants of each variety being used. The ground 

 had been in corn on a clover sod the previous 

 year and was prepared by spading to a depth 

 of ten inches, turning under a liberal quantity 

 of manure. 



During the summer the bed was given thor- 

 ough cultivation both ways with a handwheel 

 hoe, using the cultivator teeth at least once a 

 week and sometimes twice when the weather 

 was very dry. At each cultivation every run- 

 ner was carefully pinched off, not pulled. I 

 have an idea that when the runners are care- 

 lessly pulled off that the young tender feeding 

 roots of the plant are broken, thereby giving 

 it a set back from which it takes some days to 

 recover. How those plants did grow, how 

 large and dark green were their leaves. In a 

 short time I could only cultivate one way, and 

 that finally became very hazardous. 



The bed was well mulched with strawy 

 manure in the fall, and about one bushel of 

 wood ashes broadcasted over it early in the 

 spring. Before growth had started the straw 

 was raked from the rows and allowed to re- 

 main on the ground. 



When the plants came in bloom it looked as 

 if my wife had covered the bed with bleaching 

 linen, it was so snowy white. The neighbor 

 who furnished the seedling plants counted fifty- 

 seven bloom stalks on one hill, and from that 

 bed during the season were picked two hun- 

 dred and nine quarts of berries, or at the rate 

 of twenty thousand quarts per acre. The ber- 

 ries were fairly large and exceedingly well flav- 

 ored. The yield could have been increased 

 had all but the two large berries on each stalk 

 been removed. 



Berries grown by this plan, carefully picked 

 with a stem one and one-half inches long on 

 each berry, and then packed in new boxes 

 lined with strawberry leaves, will command 

 almost any reasonable price that one wants to 

 ask in the New York market. 



Why not cultivate less ground and do it 

 better; grow better fruit; get better prices; 

 abandon the matted row with its few large 

 berries and myriad of small ones. At the 

 rate this bed turned out, an acre yielding in 

 the same proportion and berries selling at ten 

 cents per quart — a very moderate price for 

 good fruit — the gross income from an acre 

 would be about two thousand dollars, and 

 that is the best argument that can be ad- 

 vanced for intensive culture. 



BR/Ujl 

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Cattle Manure 



Shredded on 

 Pulverized 



Beit for all Indoor and outdoor work. No bad odor. 

 Eailly applied. Delivered eait of Misiouri fUret, 

 12.00 per bag (100 lb«.) Write for circular!. 



The Pulverized Manure Co. 

 2/ Union Stock Yard*, Chicago. 



