when taken to the garden or field for 
setting. A hot day is bad for setting 
strawberry plants. A hot windy day is 
terrible. A cool cloudy day is fine. Some- 
times plants must be kept a while be- 
cause the ground is not ready or for 
some other reason. Small lots of plants 
can be kept in the family refrigerator if 
there is room. 
Burying the crate or package for a 
while in a snowbank is satisfactory. The 
very best way to hold plants is in cold 
storage between 29 and 32° — never 
never put plants in a freezer where tem- 
peratures will go below 28°. 
CULTIVATING, HOEING AND TRAIN- 
ING. The purpose of cultivating and hoe- 
ing is to control weeds and keep the 
top soil loose so as to conserve soil 
moisture and enable the new runners to 
take root. Shallow cultivation and hoeing 
is best — not to exceed 2 inches. 
1. Uncover the buds. Any of the plant 
buds which have become covered with 
packed or caked dirt must be uncovered. 
Neglect in doing this is often the greatest 
single cause of a poor stand. The outside 
leaves may remain fresh and green for 
some time but if the bud is smothered 
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. 
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 crop 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 enough. 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 IV2 to 2V2 feet wide has been formed. 
When that has been done as many as 
possible of the later runners should be 
pulled or cut off. 
WEED KILLERS. There is much work 
being done with weed killers at the var- 
ious State Experiment Stations. We rec- 
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