REMOVING BUDS FROM TOUNO STRAWBERRY PLANTS. 
One of our very best investments Is cutting the buds from the young: spring set strawberry plants 
just as soon as they appear. We have the men go over them in a body with a foreman following, closely 
Inspecting the work, seeing that every bud Is removed; this relieves the plants of the great strain of 
pollenization. throwing all of its energies to building up a large root and crown system which is the founda- 
tion to a big crop of fancy berries. 
Never allow your young plants to bloom the first year they are set; it's an easy and quick Job to take 
them oft. simply cut or pinch the fruit stems. If allowed to fruit the fir.<!t year they are not only weaken- 
ed by pollen exhaustion but seed production as well, resulting in a loss rather than a profit. 
heavy crops will not occur again for several 
years, which may be attributed to pollen ex- 
haustion; but if you properly restrict it by 
pruning or cutting off surplus buds, so it will 
not became seminally weak, it will bear good 
crops of fine fruit every year. Every grower 
of trrapes knows that he must cut off fully five- 
sixth of his wood and buds every season to get 
iugii-grade fruit, and this is always done in 
the winter or early spring, before excessive 
pollen secretion takes place. "Bearing itself to 
death," is a common expression among fruit 
growers and yet but few persons understand 
the waste of plant vitality arising out of exces- 
sive breeding. 
The strawberry plant left to itself throws 
its whole energies into this sexual function of 
seed production and consequent fruit, and 
gradually its seed organs waste away until its 
fruit is small and inferior and then we say it 
has run out. 
It is only within the last lew years that 
strawberry growine has been made profitable. 
At first the grower fruited his beds several 
years until it needed renovation and manuring 
and then he fitted new land, v. .nt to the old 
bed £or plants and after repeating this once or 
twice he got but little fruit and gave up the 
business in disgust. 
The boom in strawberry growing came when 
an eminent horticulturist pointed out that bet- 
ter results would follow by taking plants from 
yearling beds which had borne no fruit and 
remove all blossrnns the first year. This was 
a big improvement and seedlings of quality 
held out longer because the exhaustive and de- 
vitalizing process of pollen secretions 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 thev 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 nollenation had occurred 
there soon came to be the greatest difference 
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 productive seedlings 
and fabulous prices were paid for them and for 
a few seasons they shone like a meteor in the 
horticultural heavens; but they soon began to 
grow dim because of the wasting away of the 
fruit organs and like lueir predecessors, in 
their weakened condition, fell an easy victim 
to insect, fungi and all the ills plant life is 
heir to, and so were uiscarded. 
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 
pollen and pistil fluids are the prime factors 
in growing large berries of quality. 
We have referred to bud variation under 
selection and restriction and the consequent 
changes, and here the work of the plant 
breeder is most valuable. He must be skilled 
in detecting variation for these are often so 
slight that only the trained eye would notice 
them. He must readily select those plants 
having the most improved changes in their 
vascular system and reject those showing a 
