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restraints that we put upon it. This is, in one sense, a little 

 unfortunate, as some growers seem to think that any treatment 

 will do for a strawberry. Certainly the plant is often subjected 

 to a rough-and-ready routine — especially as regards propagation 

 —that gives it no chance to crop heavily within a short period, 

 and necessitates its being grown for two years before it can 

 give a good return. The better a valuable plant grows, the 

 better we ought to treat it, for if in nature and habit it be strong 

 and kindly, it will prove responsive to good treatment.. 

 Experienced growers do not need to be told that the quick or 

 slow fruiting of a strawberry plant turns on the readiness with, 

 which it forms a " crown." The crown is the thickened heart 

 of the plant, on which the plant concentrates itself — root, stem,, 

 and leaf. If we examine a strong strawberry plant just after 

 blooming in summer, there will be no crown worth speaking of,, 

 because it has burst, and produced flower-stem and blossoms ;. 

 there will only be leaves and roots besides the flowers. If the 

 same plant is examined again in autumn, another thickened, 

 heart will be found to have formed ; that is, the plant is preparing 

 itself for another year's fruiting. As a rule, the crown is only 

 half finished then, and between November and June it will 

 thicken and solidify in a very marked degree. If the soil be good 

 and root-production vigorous, a plant which shows only a small 

 crown, the size of a large pea, in October, may by the June 

 following develop a heart as big as a large thimble, and produce 

 a good cluster of large flowers. My object in calling attention 

 to this is to show that the common idea that a strawberry plant 

 cannot form a really strong fruiting crown in its first year, and 

 every year, is wrong. Many market growers argue that a young 

 strawberry should be grown two years before it is fruited, in 

 order to get a strong plant, but if a strawberry crop be properly 

 managed, it will give an appreciable amount of fruit the first 

 year, and make just as good a plant the second, as the average 

 of those which most growers produce in two years. The 

 importance of this lies in the fact that we get a turn-over on 

 capital a year in advance. The explanation of the fact that a 

 considerable section of so shrewd and active a body of men as the 

 market growers adopt the one-crop-in-two-years system with 

 young strawberries may lie partly in the fact that they have 

 their employes very full of work when the first runners come in 



