GREAT CROPS OF STRAWBERRIES AND HOW TO GROW THEM 
Copyright 1913 by R. M. Kellogg Ca, Three Rivers, Mich. 
BREEDING BED ON THE KELLOGG FARM AT THREE RIVERS 
/^NE of the views of the Kellogg home farm that never fails to evoke the pleasure and surprise of visitors is that afforded by 
^ the long rows of beautiful plants that stretch away in the distance, and which are shown in the above scene. As a piece of 
cultural work it scarcely may be excelled, and it affords unquestioned evidence of the superior quality of the Kellogg plants. 
or soy beans, as the ease may be. The weed- 
er is brought into use as soon as the legume 
shows its head, and the great field is kept 
free and clean of weeds. 
Loading the Soil with Plant Food 
'T'HUS the vetch is encouraged to develop 
an immense root system, every root be- 
ing heavily laden with nitrogen nodules, full 
to bursting with this essential element, and 
the mass of fibrous foliage insures a soil 
loaded with humus, rendering the soil friable 
and spongy, and capable of absorbing and re- 
taining great quantities of moisture even in 
dry seasons. Then, some time in the month 
of October, never later than November, we 
turn under the leguminous crop. Later on 
we distribute barnyard manure at the rate 
of from fifteen to eighteen tons to the acre, 
and this in turn is plowed under in the 
spring. . Again the soil is harrowed and re- 
harrowed until thoroughly pulverized, when 
it is rolled. Then the setting gang begins 
the work of putting out the plants for the 
next year's crop. About every five years we 
scatter two tons to the acre of finely pulver- 
ized raw rock phosphate over the field of 
legumes before the latter are plowed under. 
Thus do we maintain perfect soil conditions 
in order that Kellogg's Thoroughbred plants 
shall be the best that soil and sunshine and 
labor may produce. But perfect as this 
work has been, we now plan even greater 
perfection. Having increased the area de- 
voted to plants so that the farm now is divid- 
ed into three approximately equal parts, we 
began in 1913 the preparation of the soil for 
the 1915 crop, and this treatment will be re- 
peated in 1914. In a word, we shall prac- 
tically maintain virgin soil in which to grow 
our plants. 
Cultivating Strawberry Plants 
'T'HE third in the trinity of elements that 
make for success in horticulture is culti- 
vation. Good plants, good soil, perfect cul- 
tivation — these three are essential, and with- 
out them there can be no satisfactory re- 
sults, while with them failure is almost im- 
possible. On the Kellogg farm cultivation 
never ceases, except when rainy weather in- 
tervenes, from the day the plants are set in 
the spring until Jack Frost makes it neces- 
sary to "lay by" and the plants are tucked 
away for the long winter night under their 
blanket of straw. A large number of horses 
are employed in cultivating the plants, and 
from twenty to thirty men, composing the 
hoeing gang, make their endless rounds from 
spring until late fall, seeing to it that each 
plant receives proper care, pinching off all 
blossoms as they appear (which increases the 
strength of the plant), and making it im- 
possible for grass and weeds to get a start. 
One season we carefully computed the dis- 
tances traversed by the cultivators during 
their thirty tours over the fields with their 
long rows of plants, and the figures revealed 
the fact that the total distance covered 
amounted to 17,520 miles. This is equal to 
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