How Early? 



Just as soon as weather permits getting ground 

 ready. In the South. February and March and 

 early April. In the Middle States, March and 

 April. In the Northern States, April. 



Be sure to order early enough so that plants 

 can be right at hand as soon as your ground is 

 ready. Early setting pays big — the plants start 

 quicker, grow better and make better beds than 

 plants set late. 



When a plant grower in the latitude of New 

 York or Massachusetts can dig plants, berry 

 growers in those sections should be setting their 

 plants. This is a big advantage we can give 

 growers in those latitudes. We can dig and ship 

 plants earlier and have them right at hand for 

 early planting. 



Care of Plants 



Set plants on arrival if possible. It will help 

 if roots of the plants can be dipped in water and 

 allowed to "plump up" for some time before set- 

 ting, perhaps over night. If plants have become 

 quite dry in transit it will help to put them in 

 soak, that is to let them stay in the water for 

 several hours. Over night will not hurt. When 

 this is done, however, they should be set fairly 

 soon after being taken from the water. At any 

 rate have them thoroughly moistened when 

 planting. If anything prevents immediate plant- 

 ing and the weather is cool, the top of the crate 

 should be taken off and the plants loosened in 

 the crate, still keeping the roots covered with 

 the packing material. Placed where it is cool, 

 plants will keep like this for two or three days. 

 If weather is too warm to keep plants, or too 

 cold to set them out they should be heeled in in 

 some shaded or protected place. Dig a V-shaped 

 trench, open the bundles, spread them out in thin 

 layers with buds just even with the surface of 

 the ground and firm the soil back against the 

 roots of the plants. If necessary several layers 

 of plants can be heeled in the same place with 

 one or two inches of soil between each layer. 

 Wet the soil and plants thoroughly when heeling 

 is done. 



Setting the Plants 



Where commercial fertilizer is to be used under 

 the plants, rows should be run out 3 or 4 inches 

 deep with a one-horse plow, the fertilizer drilled 

 into these rows and thoroughly worked in. Then 

 the soil should be thrown back into these fur- 

 rows and again leveled off. Where considerable 

 acreages are planted, a horse-drawn trans- 

 planter such as is used for sweet potatoes, toma- 

 toes, tobacco, etc., is often used. To do a good 

 job this way. however, requires skill and ex- 

 perience, if the crowns of the plants are to be 

 left at the proper level with the roots extending 

 straight into the ground and not set on a slant 

 oftentimes near the surface of the ground. A 

 spade, trowel or dibble are the tools most often 

 used in setting plants. Where one of these is 

 used, they are set down the prepared row with 

 the roots of the plants spread out as much as 

 possible and the bud of the plant just at the sur- 

 face of the ground. It is also important to press 



the ground firmly against the roots and to see 

 that enough dirt is filled in near the crown of 

 the plant so that the top of the roots will not lie 

 left exposed. Where the fertilizer is not put 

 under the plants, the rows can merely be laid 

 off with a marker and the plants set by any of 

 the methods suggested down the marked row 

 instead of down the fertilized row. 



Cultivation and Training 



The plants should be cultivated and hoed soon 

 after they have started growth after being set 

 out. It is important at the first hoeing to un- 

 cover the buds of any plants which might have 

 been planted too deep. If this is not done very 

 early, these plants will not recover in time to 

 amount to anything, even though they might 

 live along all summer. Cultivate often enough 

 to keep the surface of the ground from becoming 

 crusted and to keep down the grass and weeds. 

 It is not necessary to practice deep cultivation. 

 A depth of one to one and one-half inches is deep 

 enough for the hoe, or perhaps slightly deeper 

 with the horse cultivator. Varieties like Chesa- 

 peake which are hard to bed at best arc very 

 responsive to thorough and frequent stirring of 

 the soil. 



We believe in the well-spaced matted row 

 system of training strawberries, and with this 

 system the first runners from the plants should 

 be encouraged to take root, forming from 10 to 

 20 or even more young plants from each plant 

 set, paying some attention as the hoeing is done 

 to see that the plants do not become crowded too 

 thickly on the bed. If the plants can be spaced 

 in training them so that each plant is a few 

 inches from any other plant, but with a well 

 filled-in row 15 to 18 inches wide, you will have 

 a very favorable condition for getting large 

 crops of fancy berries. Of course, a wider bed 

 is O. K. where the rows themselves are set 4 feet 

 or more apart, and a narrower bed might be 

 more desirable where the rows are only 3% feet 

 apart. The saving of the first runner plants 

 becomes very important when it is realized that 

 the set of fruit buds will be much heavier on 

 these plants than on those formed in late sum- 

 mer and fall. Investigators have established 

 this fact very definitely. 



If you desire to use the hill system, the plants 

 should be set considerably closer together and 

 all the runners kept off. We feel that the hill 

 system, if used at all, should be only in cases 

 where the ground is very limited or perhaps with 

 the Everbearing varieties. 



Manure and Fertilizer 



Barnyard manure spread broadcast on the 

 land after it is plowed and thoroughly disced in 

 is the best thing you can do to add fertility to 

 the land to get a better growth of strawberry 

 plants and fruit. However, this is not neces- 

 sary. Green manure crops and fertilizer will 

 give very good results. We have had some re- 

 markable results in plant growth from using a 

 mixture composed of 1,500 pounds dissolved bone 

 and 500 pounds of super phosphate. The analy- 

 sis of this mixture is about 3-10-0. Use about 

 500 or 000 pounds of this per acre in the drill 

 before the plants are set, or alongside of the 

 plants, and thoroughly work in with hoe or cul- 

 tivator soon after setting the plants. Where 

 applied in the drill, it should be worked in thor- 



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