PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT. 
The enormous productiveness of these plants is the result of scientific development. Physical exer- 
cise in bearing, fruit, with continual selection and restriction have stimulated the fruit producinE vas- 
cular system just in the same way the powerful muscles of the man on the opposite page are built up. 
The boom in strawberry growing came 
when an eminent horticulturist pointed out 
that better results would follow by taking 
plants frdm yearling beds which had borne no 
fruit and remove all blossoms the first year. 
This was a big improvement and seedlings ol 
quality did hold out longer because the ex- 
haustive and devitalizing process of pollen se- 
cretions was avoided, but for the want of 
physical exercise in the breeding functions 
they gradually grew weak and unfruitful. 
This was greatly hastened by the fact that 
fruit growers persisted in taking the immature 
tip plants or those which ran out in the alley 
between the rows. These plants form so late 
in the fall they have no time to complete the 
development of their fruit organs and as the 
blossom buds were not removed until after 
the mischief of excessive pollenation had oc- 
curred there soon came to be the greatest dif- 
ference in fruiting ability and the running out 
process went on very fast. 
During all these years there has been a 
clamor for new and more i)roductive seedlings 
and fabulous prices were paid for them and for 
a few seasons they shone like a meteor 
in the horticultural heavens; but soon 
began to grow dim because of the wasting 
away of their fruit organs and like their pred- 
ecessors, in their weakened condition, fell an 
easy victim to insect, fungi and all the ills plant 
life was heir to and so were discarded. 
If there were no changes in the fruit organs 
of plants arising out of excessive pollenation 
and seed formation you could continuously re- 
new from the old bed by taking new runners, 
indefinitely; but in all such experiments it 
has been shown that the strength of the plant 
would all go to runners and foliage and not to 
fruit, showing conclusively that potency of pol- 
len and pistil fluids are the prime factors in 
growing large berries of (piality. 
