Strawberries How To Gyow Them 
A WAGON LOAD OF KELLOGG'S THOROUGHBREDS 
WRITING of date July 29, 1907, L. M. Kerlin of Liverpool, Pa., says: "I send you a photograph showing my 
outfit loaded up and ready to start to market. I have been very successful in the strawberry busmess; my 
whole family likes it, and Oh! such encouragement you get when the people see the berries so large and sweet! It 
makes you feel as though you were king of kings. I started on a small scale with your plants and under your instruc- 
tions, so that 1 am now able to handle a large acreage." What Mr. Kerlin has done others may do— with Thor- 
oJghbreds as a starter. 
Helping Plants Through the Mulching 
p\URING the winter, with its heavy rains and 
^ snows, the mulching materials have become 
soaked with moisture and rest in a mat upon the 
plants so dense and so heavy as to render it 
impossible for the plants to grow up through it 
without the grower's help. In the spring, when 
vegetation starts growing, this mulching should be 
separated directly over each row, the work being 
done most easily with a fork. Simply make an 
opening through the mulching that lies upon the 
plants and the plants will come up through this 
opening. This will leave the mulching close 
around each plant. When the berries begin to 
form the weight of the fruit will naturally pull 
the stems downward until they come in contact 
with the mulching, which affords a clean carpet 
for the berries to ripen upon. 
Another advantage in leaving the mulching 
close up to the plants is that the moisture is held 
where it is most needed, and it also prevents 
weeds from growing near the plants. When 
some growers uncover their vines in the spring 
they rake the mulching off clean, leaving a bare 
space all around the plants, with not even enough 
straw for the fruit to ripen on. This is a serious 
mistake, as one of the most important objects of 
mulching is to provide a clean floor for the ber- 
ries to lie upon during the growing and ripening 
periods. Be sure that you handle your mulching 
just right, both when you put it on the rows, and 
when you remove it from over the plants in the 
spring. 
Weeding the Fruiting Bed 
IF weed seed, wheat, rye or oats are in the 
^ mulching material — and this generally is 
found to be the case where these materials are 
used as mulch, the seeds will sprout and come up 
through the mulching, and if allowed to grow 
will be detrimental to the crop of berries. 
The best way we have found to get rid of 
these obnoxious growths is to pull them up by 
hand. When the earth is soft following a rain, 
they are easily pulled up. If the weather is dry 
we take a sharp hoe and scrape it under the 
mulching in such a way as to shave the weeds off 
just below the surface of the soil. This is a 
light task and once over the field will leave the 
plants perfectly free from all intruders. If the 
mulching is several inches deep, few weeds will 
succeed in getting through it. 
It 
