26 
Wet the soil and plants thoroughly. A light 
covering may be necessary. 
Incidentally, there is one way to play safe. 
If you have cold storage available order 
your plants shipped in March while they 
are still thoroughly dormant. Even moder- 
ate delays in transit won't hurt them at that 
time and they will keep perfectly in cold 
storage at 32 Degrees F. until planting con- 
ditions are just right. If plants are dug after 
they have made lots of foliage and possibly 
blossoms, they should not be held more 
than a few days even in storage. 
U. S. Government and New York State 
experiments have shown that anyone who 
cannot normally set plants by April 15th, 
could confidently expect much better re- 
sults with stored dormant plants than with 
freshly dug ones. 
WHAT IS THE BEST METHOD OF 
SETTING PLANTS? Any method is good 
TOO SHALLOW JUST RIGHT TOO DEEP 
which leaves the roots reasonably straight 
down in the soil, spread some if possible, 
with the soil pressed firmly against the 
roots and the bud just at the surface of the 
packed down soil. A good garden trowel is 
the best tool for the work in small plots. 
Others are a spade, dibble, paddle, a big 
spoon or in larger fields a horse or tractor 
drawn transplanter. With plants that have 
very long roots clipping them off to about 4 
or 5 inches in length will make it easier to 
get a good job of setting. It will not hurt the 
plants. No matter how long or how short 
the leaf stems, fruit stems or roots may be 
at time of setting, the bud must be just at 
the surface. (See picture). 
HOW FAR APART SHOULD 
PLANTS BE SET? In general, we recom- 
mend setting plants 18 to 20 inches apart 
in rows ZYi to 4 feet apart. This requires 
about 7,000 plants per acre. (See table.) 
Somewhat closer planting is satisfactory in 
small gardens where space is limited, for 
the hill system as with everbearers, or for 
late setting where a good stand is uncer- 
tain. Closer setting is suggested also for 
varieties that make few plants. 
For the small garden order 7 plants for 
each 1 feet of row you want to set or figure 1 
plant for each 5 square feet. Thus for a plot 
10 x 10 you would need about 20 plants. 
HOEING, CULTIVATING AND 
TRAINING. Frequent hoeing and culti- 
vating make larger, stronger fruiting beds 
and a better crop of berries. The purpose is 
to keep down weeds and grass and to keep 
the top soil loose. Loose top soil helps con- 
serve soil moisture and makes it easier for 
new runners to take root. Shallow cultiva- 
tion is best — 1 to 1 Y% inches deep with the 
hoe or slightly deeper with horse cultivator. 
There are three other important jobs to 
be done along with the hoeing work. 
(1) Uncover the buds. At the first or 
second hoeing any of the plant buds 
which have become covered with 
packed or caked dirt must be unco- 
ered. Neglect in this is often the greatest 
single cause of a poor stand. The out- 
side leaves may remain fresh and green 
for some time but if the bud is smoth- 
ered the whole plant will eventually die. 
(2) Cut off the blossoms at each hoeing. 
The vitality necessary to mature a cluster or 
two of berries is needed by the newly set 
plant to make a strong, vigorous plant 
growth. Blossoms may be left on vigorous 
plants of Everbearing varieties after July 20. 
(3) Most of the training of new runners is 
done at hoeing time. A well spaced matted 
row is the best system for getting the largest 
crops of the best berries. It will not pay to 
be too fussy about exact spacing distances 
but it should be kept in mind that 4 to 8 
plants per square foot of fruiting bed is 
plenty. An excess is no better than weeds. 
Train the first strong, new runners out like 
spokes from a wheel and root them until a 
fruiting row 1 x /i to 2 Y2 feet wide has been 
formed. When that has been done as many 
as possible of the later runners should be 
pulled off or cut off. 
