THE HOItCE STEAWBERRlf BED. 
What knowledge and habits are of most worth? This Is a question that may well stand first in the 
minds of fathers and mothers, for hold any ideals we may. the great fact still stands out as clear as the 
noon-day sun that food and raiment demand a large part of our attention and fortunate Indeed is the boy 
and girl who learns early to appreciate the best and to know how to get it honestly and independently. 
The illustration above is made from a photograph of a home garden, the bed consisting of eleven 
rows three feet apart and occupying but little more than ten square rods. From this plot of ground there 
were picked four hundred and ninety quarts of bei-ries beside what was used by the family both on the 
table and for canning. This yield was not uncommonly large, but was good. The berries sold brought 
the neat sum of $48.60. Nor was the financial part the most profitable, for habits of industry and thrift 
are nowhere better fixed than in the fruit garden, especially if tliose who do the work are to reap the 
reward. Everybody admires the man and the woman who is a financial success, anr' to be a financial 
success does not necessarily mean to be rich, but rather to be forehanded and self supporting. The boy 
and girl who forms habits of industry, method, thoroughness, conscientiousness, courtesy, etc.. have the 
foundations to financial success in its true sense already laid, and when given a chance there is no 
better nor more practical way to learn it than in the strawberry bed. Thrift Is a habit and the right way 
to learn to do is by doing. 
ing just as good fruit and as much of it every 
year, provided it were given good tillage and 
plenty of manure. But this proposition is at 
variance with the experience of every success- 
ful berry grower. 
The old Wilson Albany strawberry is often 
cited to show there is no such thing as varia- 
tion in plants. This old variety possessed a 
strong fruiting vigor and held its place for 
more than forty years as the leading market 
berry, but in the last years that it was in gen- 
eral cultivation there were nearly as many 
strains of the Wilson as there were berry 
fields of it. It was very far from the big, 
luscious berry introduced by James Wilson of 
Albany. It did not attain half the size it 
originally did and when you get . the facts or 
its existence you have conclusive proof that 
selection and restriction thoroughly carried 
out would have perpetuated this sterling old 
variety indefinitely. If you study this subject 
carefully you will see there is a variability in 
everything possessing life and that the basis of 
all improvement is selection ' and physical 
manipulation. 
PROPAGATION BY SEEDS. 
We can not rely on strawberry plants propa- 
gated by seeds because there is a consolidation 
or merger of two life germs, that of the male 
and another of the female, and one may be 
much stronger than the other. If you were to 
plant twenty thousand seeds of the Sample 
strawberry fertilized by Aroma, probably not 
one would be better or as good as the Sample, 
becai-se an entire new vascular system would 
be created in the merger. There is a complete 
division of each and every characteristic of 
father and mother in every particular and 
sometimes peculiarities of even remote ances- 
tors will appear in the new life. 
When we do find in a new seedling variety 
such a gland system as would in producing 
seeds build up the largest amount of fruit flesh 
and give it the richest flavor, best texture, 
most pleasing color and form, we at once be- 
9 
