E. W. TOWNSEND SONS • SALISBURY • MARYLAND 





Plant Selection and Its Importance 



PLANT SELECTION does not differ from the breeding 

 of horses, cows and other animals in the matter of keeping 

 up the "Strain" and improving it. Townsend's have 

 always taken pride in the "Strain" of plants offered their 

 customers. Our thirty-five years of experience in the 

 growing and propagation of small fruit plants has given 

 us valuable information that could have been obtained 

 only through constant contact with our propagating fields 

 throughout the years we have grown plants. Every 

 Townsend plant is an offspring of a selected plant that 

 has special merits back of it. We go into our fields each 

 year with experienced men under personal supervision 

 of one of the Townsends and personally select plants 

 that are to be used for mother plants. Plants are chosen 

 that show outstanding vigor and productiveness, and to 

 the greatest degree exhibit the true characteristics of 

 the variety. These selected breeding plants are then 

 reset into a plot where they are grown until the following 

 spring. During this period of growth numerous strong 

 healthy runner plants are produced. These plants are 

 then taken up during the spring at proper planting time 

 and set in large acreages on our farms where they are 

 grown for our many customers, throughout the country. 



WE do not stop here, but go on year after year selecting 

 this stock and keeping our strain up to the nearest to 

 perfection that thirty-five years in small fruit plant 

 breeding has taught us. Our many customers benefit 

 by the selected strain in larger yields and better quality 

 fruit. 



What It Means to Have a Plant of Strong 

 Crown Development 



Recent research has shown that 80% of the fruit stems 

 on strawberry plants are formed in the crown of the plant 

 from September to November of the season before blos- 

 soms appear. It is, therefore, important to set nothing 

 but well developed plants for your fruiting beds; plants 

 that will have sufficient vigor to send out strong crowned 

 runner plants in which these fruit buds are formed. This 

 governs the yield of berries you will get the following 

 spring after setting. 



With Townsend's selected strain of plants you are as- 

 sured of a well developed fruiting bed that will yield far 

 above the average plants offered, when grown under 

 normal conditions. Many thousands of our customers 

 know this to be true and write us convincing letters about 

 their heavy yields obtained from our plants. 



2,500 Quarts or 10,000 Quarts to the Acre— 

 Which Yield Do You Prefer? 



The fact is that the average yield of strawberries, 

 taking the country over, is less than 2500 quarts per acre 

 (according to government figures). This low yield will 

 barely pay cost of growing strawberries, while a yield 

 of 5,000 to 14,000 quarts per acre will usually net from 

 $500 to $1400. This is a very good profit even at the lower 

 figure, and much more than is being made on the average 

 truck crop. Many of Townsend's customers report yields 

 of 10,000 to 14,000 quarts per acre and seldom report less 

 than 5,000. This is convincing proof that the Townsend's 

 strain of plants have much higher average yields per acre 

 than just ordinary plants. 



Selecting Planting StocH for propagating purposes to meet the increased demand for Townsend's 



Selected Strain Plants. 



