E. w\ TOWNSEND, SQUARE DEAL NURSERY, SALISBURY, MD. 



Growing and Marketing Strawberries 



There are two distinct features in the Strawberry busi- | 

 ness. 



First — The crop is to be grown. Not any sort of a crop, 

 but a crop of the highest order must be grown if the grow- 

 er is to get the full benefits from his labor. In the first 

 place, the right kind of soil is necessary, but not so much 

 the soil as the condition of the soil. A very great amount 

 of humus is necessary in any kind of soil to grow the best 

 crop. If the land is new (just been cleared) there usually 

 remains sufficient humus to grow one good crop of straw- 

 berries. If it is not new land, a sufficient amount of stable 

 manure, spread upon the land, preferably in the fall and 

 plowed under, and again plowed in the spring, and thor- 

 oughly worked to pieces, is an ideal way to start. 



Second — If the stable manure is not at hand, such crops 

 as clover, vetch, alfalfa, cow peas, may be grown and 

 plowed under during the fall and again in the spring, 

 thoroughly disced, and cut to pieces (not advisable to re- 

 plow in spring when a heavy growth has been turned 

 under). When the soil has been prepared in this manner, 

 there is little doubt about the crop, if proper cultivation is 

 given during the growing season. For land that is full of 

 humus, and properly worked up to a fine seed bed. will 

 stand any amount of either drought or rain. 



Next in order for the crop come the plants, that are to 

 do a very great part of the work in building up the big 

 crop of berries, if such is to be expected. Not any kind of 

 plants can be used, any more than any sort of soil. High 

 quality fruitful plants are the only kind that can be de- 

 pended upon to grow this big crop. 



Nor will the best plants give the best results if allowed 

 to grow in their own way. It is a usual thing with most 

 varieties of strawberries that if the soil is made rich enough 

 to grow a big crop under favorable conditions, if left to 

 themselves they will cover the earth with a surplus lot of 

 runner plants that if allowed to remain will produce only 

 small, trashy fruit. 



Our plan of setting a field to strawberries is this : That 

 the rows should be thirty inches apart, plants set fifteen 

 inches in the row ; that they be cultivated with a horse cul- 

 tivator one way and with a wheel hoe the fifteen inch way. 

 That all surplus runners should be taken off and the plants 

 allowed to stool. It will take about 15.000 plants to set an 

 acre in. this way, and when the proper plants are set and 

 properly cultivated, the yield should never be under 15.000 

 quarts per acre, and the fruit is worth at least twice as 

 much per ouart as when grown in matted rows that are 

 smothered up with a mass of small, barren plants. 



Let us fisrure that we have three times the average 

 crop of berries and that the price will be twice as much 

 per quart, and a ready sale. You thus have six acres in 

 one. You have only manured and cultivated one acre. 

 Will not figure it out in dollars and cents, but leave it 

 to our reader to figure this out in his own way. You 

 ask yourself, probably, if not used to growing straw- 

 berries in the check row or hill system, is not the keep- 

 ing off of all runners a task ? We answer, yes. it is 

 some task, but this task is the greatest of the hoe work, 

 as when a cultivation can be given each way there re- 

 mains but little grass to be hoed, and the only task for 

 the hoe man is to simply cut the runners off. This may 

 be done about every two weeks, and later in the season 

 fewer runners make as the plant is fast building up a 

 tremendous crown system that greatly enlarges the mother 

 plant and the desire to make runners freely is lost to the 

 great amount of fruit crowns. 



At the end of the growing season the plants will fully 

 meet the fifteen inch way, and leave but a narrow space 

 the 30 inch way. All blossoms should be cut off the | 

 standard varieties in June, and if the field is everbearing > 

 varieties, they should be kept off until July or July 15th. j 

 We are asked many times the question as to manuring 

 strawberry plants during the summer and fall. Our re- 

 ply is that it will do no harm and probably a great deal 

 of good to sprinkle between the rows wood ashes, rotten 

 manure of any sort, or fertilizer. In this page we have 

 tried to make the growing of fancy strawberries plain to 

 our customers. If they care to try this method they will 

 soon be the richer and will quit doubting their fellow 

 growers that report their yields of 15,000 quarts and up 

 per acre. I had rather have one acre grown right than 

 have five acres grown themselves, writes Mr. Bailey, of 

 Indiana. 



Hundreds of our customers have grown their crops in 

 this way for years and will think of no other system. We 

 have never before come out in earnest for this method, 

 but we are now fully convinced that this is really the 

 best and most profitable way to grow strawberries. When 

 a crop of fancy, high-colored and fine-flavored straw- 

 berries is grown they are in a word sold. For there is 

 never a time when big fancy red strawberries will not 

 sell themselves. In this method the roots or the plants 

 are not crowded, each plant gets sufficient moisture, and 

 the roots have room to feed from the soil. The fruit has 

 a chance to get the air and sun that are so important in 

 making a high colored and high flavored berry. 



We desire all our customers to be the leaders in their 

 communities and it is only in growing their crops under 

 the best scientific manner that this can be done. We 

 may give you the best plant that it is possible to grow, 

 and vou can starve it to death as quickly as you can a pig 

 by putting the pig in a pen and not feeding him at all. 

 Plants, the very best plants, must be fed and cultivated 

 in the best manner if they must produce the great crops, 

 the paying crops. 



_ The next method of setting plants that we have tried 

 is the narrow matted row. While fancy berries can be 

 grown in this way, neither the quantity nor the quality 

 can be grown under this method. For a narrow matted 

 row we advise setting plants thirty inches in the row, 

 with rows thirty inches wide, allowing sufficient plants to 

 make to form a bed not over ten inches wide, allowing 

 the first plants that make to set. and with a runner cut- 

 ter attachment to the cultivator cut all surplus runners 

 that come in the row. This way is far better than the 

 wide matted rows that are seen so much, that look like 

 nursery rows. 



Growing strawberries is an easy and cheerful business, 

 when one loves his work. No other crops like fruit will 

 produce so quickly as the strawberry, especially the ever- 

 bearing that are paying you back ten-fold in a few 

 months after being set in the field. The second crop from 

 the strawberries is grown at a very small cost, as there is 

 not much cultivation or hoeing required, and the crop 

 often is heavier than the first crop. 



Marketing the Crop 



Every section of the country has its own conditions, 

 and not much advice can be given along this line except 

 to advise that there is nothing so good as packing the 

 berries in the best possible manner, as it is appearance 

 that sells an article of any kind. John Jones' name soon 

 becomes known, if he has a good article to sell. The 

 buyers are hunting Jones, not Jones hunting a buyer. 



Our Reputation is Back of Every 

 Plant We Sell 



Most of the old strawberry growers have for some time 

 noticed the very great difference in the fruiting quality 

 of strawberry plants, of the standard varieties, and they 

 are now up-to-date in buying their plants from men who 

 know their business in how to grow the best selected 

 plants. There are a few plant growers who know noth- 

 ing and say nothing about quality plants, except to say 

 that their plants are as good as grown and anyone who 

 claims thoroughbred or pedigreed plants is only a hum- 

 bug. 



We have never made half the claims ourselves about 

 our plants that we grow for our customers, that our cus- 

 tomers have made about them. That we are pleasing them 

 is sufficient for us. If we were to claim that our plants 

 were the only good quality plants grown we would be 

 wrong, and were we to say that our plants were on a 

 level with the average plants sold we would be equally 

 as wrong. So we make neither claim, and allow our cus- 

 tomers who buy of us to be the judges. 



Our plants are as fully selected each year as it is pos- 

 sible to get them : our methods can not be improved upon 

 that we know. From the time plants are set in the 

 fields until they are packed for shipment everything is 

 done to make them the highest standard. 



It costs us many times as much to grow and prepare 

 for shipment a thousand plants as it does the average 

 plant grower. You ask why? Our reply is that the 

 higher bred a plant is the fewer runners it will make 

 in the first place. A plant that has no fruiting qualities 

 more than the wild plant will grow on the ditch bank, 

 without any cultivation, and if allowed any chance will 

 cover the ground with its non-fruitful plants that are 

 worthless for anything except to make worthless plants 

 for the growers who care for nothing else, so it is a plant. 

 There is no may be so about this fact. And a great 

 many plant men know this as well as we do. But these 

 few expect to get through on cheapness ; there are al- 

 ways a few people who care nothing for quality, only 

 bargain hunters, just so the article is cheap in name. 



Regarding Everbearing Varieties 



Everbearing varieties will never be sold very cheap in 

 price, unless they are bought from growers who let them 

 fruit all summer and fall, getting the crop of berries, 

 and then sell the plants. Where this is done they can be 

 sold very cheap, in fact, should be sold very cheap, for 

 they are indeed very cheap stock. It is known that a 

 spring variety that is allowed to fruit on the young plant 

 in early spring after being set out becomes almost worth- 

 less and a weakling and never amounts to very much. 

 How much worse is the everbearing plant that is allowed 

 1o fruit the whole summer and fall, sending out the weak- 

 est kind of an offspring ; in fact. I have seen them die in 

 the middle of the summer with exhaustion from their 

 loads of fruit and young weakling plants tied to them. 

 This is the sort of everbearing plants that our customers 

 write us about, that never amounted \u anything, and if 

 all the everbearers were like those they did not care for 

 any more. There has been a great demand for the ever- 

 bearing plants since they were introduced ten years ago, 

 and for this reason there has always been someone to 

 buy anything called an everbearer. But this method has 

 discouraged a lot of folks, and caused disappointment 

 after disappointment. The true best varieties of ever- 

 bearing strawberries are the highest keynote among the 

 strawberry family. They are truly a Godsend to the 

 world, and should not be treated in the manner they 

 have been. 



