ik. Wil OW NSEND., SALISBURY, -MARY LAND 
Do You Know 
That you are not treating your children fairly if you do not grow fall-bearing straw- 
berries. I am headquarters for the fall-bearing sorts, one of the oldest and largest growers 
of them in the United States. If you want nothing else from this catalog, let me send 
you my family collection—500 plants that will bear fruit almost continuously from early 
spring until late in the fall, all for $5.00 prepaid to you. This is one of my best offers 
and one that is pleasing my customers. 
100 fall bearing plants included in this collection. 
In selecting a site for your berry patch, it is best to select a place that has been 
grown to some leguminous crop the seascn before, such as cowpeas, tomatoes or potatoes, 
as plants do much better when set in this kind of soil. Never set plants over a sod if it can 
be helped. If your land is rolly or hilly, select the southern side. Most all commercial 
growers prepare their land for their berry fields a season in advance by planting such crops 
as mentioned above, for to have the best of success in berry growing it is essential to have 
the land rich with plant food. Any ordinary soil when properly manured and worked will 
grow good berries. In other words, land thajt will grow good corn, potatoes or 
tomatoes will grow good berries. In preparing the land before setting plants it 
should be thoroughly plowed to a depth of at least eight inches. This is pref- 
erable in the fall. Again in the spring (when plants are set in spring) then thoroughly 
harrowed and leveled with drags, until the surface is entirely level. For field planting I 
advise rows forty-two inches apart, setting plants twenty-four inches in row usually is suf- 
ficient with most varieties. Some sorts will give a good matted row when set even thirty 
inches apart, better than others when set fifteen inches. Select for your earlier sorts the 
highest of your land where you desire to plant, as the early varieties will usually do better 
on this kind of soil than the later ones. Most late varieties that have dome to my attention 
do better on low, springy soil when it is well drained. In setting plants we use a small gar- 
den trowel or dibble, making plenty of room to get the roots down straight and flattened 
out in fan shape; pressing the ground firmly around the plants, setting the plant as near as 
possible as it came from the ground. 
Too deep or too shallow setting will greatly hurt your crop. Plants should be worked 
with a small tooth cultivator, giving shallow cultivation almost as soon as they are set. In 
ten days from time they are set they should be given a hand cultivation with the hoe, work- 
ing very shallow. Often and shallow cultivation should continue as long as the grass 
grows, and in the East with us we usually work them with the horse cultivator well up in 
the fall months, especially if the season is a dry one. 
Preparing and working out the old beds for the second crop, this should be done, or 
commenced immediately after the last fruit is picked from the vines. Start by mowing 
off all growth that has accumulated and a portion of the vines. If there should be much 
growth it is best to burn same on the patch, catching a dry day when the wind is blowing 
strong down the rows, so as the fire will soon sweep over the patch. This will destroy all 
insects that might have accumulated in the iate vines and growth. If the vines cannot be 
burned successfully they should be hauled from the field. The rows should then be bar 
plowed, leaving the beds about eight to ten inches wide, throwing the furrow in the mid- 
dle. The old mother plants and lots of the new ones should be cut out at once and dragged 
from the beds. The five-tooth cultivator should then be run down the rows and the mid- 
dles thoroughly worked up, and a great many growers after running down the row with 
the cultivator run across the rows, dragging new earth over the crowns of the plants, caus- 
ing them to take on new roots and bringing out new crowns. The old patch should be fre- 
quently worked and hoed same as the new patch until late in the fall. Two seasons is 
long enough for the strawberry to stand, as it costS more to work out the old beds than to 
work the new. For this cause I prefer planting anew. Plants should not be set in the 
same plot for at least four years. 
One of the most important things in growing strawberries is the selecting of plants, 
for your success depends on the quality of the plants set. Usually good plants cost a trifle 
more than the ones that you can pick up around your neighborhood, which are often mixed, 
run-down runts, having been taken from the middle of the rows for generations, and in 
many cases are almost barren. It costs no more to work the patch, when set to the best 
THOROUGHBRED plants, than it does when set to the poor field-grown plants, and the 
THOROUGHBREDS will often double and treble the quantity of fruit per acre, and fruit 
that will sell on your markets for double. The up-to-date fellows of today are for growing 
only the best and they find that it pays them the best. 
One more word in regard to setting the plants and I will close the subject. If you 
should pick for your main variety one with an imperfect blossom, I recommend setting two 
perfect blossom sorts with it instead of one as is usually done, especially so if the variety 
is midseason or late. 
My reason for this is for the imperfect one to catch all the pollen necessary to make its 
full crop, which it has to depend upon for the making of the crop of perfect-shaped berries. 
here I have tried this method I have always had the best of success. For instance, take 
the old Sample variety which is late, and imperfect. I would set four rows of Sample and 
on one side I would set Parson’s! Beauty or Dunlap; the other side, one row of Mascot or 
some variety equally as late as the Sample, and so on across the patch. 
I trust that the foregoing will be of some use to some of my customers, new beginners 
especially, for I am asked the above questions hundreds of times during the year and manv 
times it is not convenient for me to answer promptly. Most of the old growers have their 
own way and work out their own salvation, which many times is the best. 
I find in traveling through the country that there are many different ways in forming 
rg A orale and I also find that a variety that is good in one locality is not always good 
n another. 
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