STRAWBERRIES 
63 
Pinching Blooms I° standard varieties it is not expected that 
frntn NpwIv they produce a crop the first season they are set 
o r>i They are cultivated so as to make them 
Set Plants form a large number of new runner plants, and the 
size of your crop the next season depends upon the number and vigor 
of these new runner plants. For that reason it is essential that all blooms 
and flower buds should be picked off from the mother plants the first 
season they are set out, so all their strength will be given to the formation 
of new runner plants. 
The bloom should be picked from everbearing varieties the first part 
of the season if you want them to form a number of runners. The mid- 
summer bloom can be left and a crop matured the latter part of the 
same season in which they are planted. 
Cnltivatinn '^"^^ cultivation of strawberries is very simple. A regu- 
^^uiuvdxion ]a,tion ]ioe, with a cutting edge about 4 inches wide, and 
an ordinary one-horse eleven-toothed cultivator, which has a lever to 
regulate the depth of the teeth, are best. The cultivation should always be 
shallow. In a small field a wheel hoe or man-power cultivator, such as the 
Planet, Jr., Iron Age, etc., is very satisfactory, and a great deal more can 
be done with them than with an ordinary hand hoe. 
The cultivator should always be run in the same direction each time. 
The newest runners, which get out into "the middles," will be laid back 
by the teeth of the cultivator. The plants should be cultivated all sum- 
mer, and, if the matted row system is followed, the new runner plants 
should be confined to a strip 12 to 15 inches wide. Some growers cover 
the tips of the runners with dirt when hoeing; however, this is not at all 
necessary if the ground is loose and mellow, as the plants will take root 
without any assistance. In cultivation and in hoeing out the rows, the 
following should be kept in mind — that the strawberry is a shallow-rooted 
plant; at the same time it is a plant that requires considerable moisture, 
so the centers of the rows should be cultivated as soon after each rain 
as the ground becomes dry enough to work, and as often thereafter as 
possible, every ten days or two weeks. The cultivator teeth should be run 
shallow, and a loose dust mulch should be kept in the center of the row. 
Cultivate so as to keep the ground level. Sometimes early in the sea- 
son a hard crust forms after a beating rain, and in breaking this crust 
there are a great many clods turned up near the plants, and the roots are 
more or less exposed. When this happens, run a wooden roller over the 
row of plants. It will not hurt the plants, and it will crush the clods and 
pack the dirt down tight about the roots and bring the moisture to the 
surface again. Rolling is not necessary except during the very dry 
weather, and when the dirt has been loosened too close to the plant. 
If >ou want the big yields of several hundred dollars an acre, keep on 
cultivating; do not stop simply because you have killed all the weeds. 
It pays just as much to cultivate after the weeds are killed as it did before 
Mulching ^ mulch is a covering for the ground, and is usually 
Q . « "DA made by spreading loaves or straw over the straw- 
otrawoerry iseas berry bed. (A dust mulch is made by keeping 
the surface of the ground thoroughly loosened and pulverized to a depth 
of several inches by cultivation — see under "Cultivation.") However, 
a mulch for strawberry beds refers to a cover of some sort of coarse trash. 
It helps to keep the soil cool and moist during the fruiting season. It 
keeps the berries free from dirt, which splatters up on them during a 
rain, affords winter protection, and prevents plants on clay soil from 
being heaved out of the ground by the alternate fi-eezing and thawing. 
In the North this mulch is generally applied in October or November 
for winter protection. In the South, where winter protection is not neces- 
sary, the mulch may be applied just before the fruiting season. In many 
sections of the Ozark country it is not necessary to mulch strawberries, 
