May, 1919 
WISCONSIN HORTICULTURE 
119 
ers, tho queen excluder may not be 
necessary, but is frequently used. 
SWARMS ARE UNDESIRABLE. 
With adequate room provided 
for the queen and ample space for 
the storage of surplus honey avail- 
able at all times, swarming should 
be reduced to a minimum. To al- 
low the bees to swarm is to divide 
the strength of the colony. The 
greater the number of bees in each 
hive, kept undivided, the greater 
the amount of honey that may be 
expected from each colony, if the 
season is not a failure. It is the 
number of strong colonies of bees 
at the beginning of the honey flow 
and not the total number of col- 
onies you own which determines 
your prospects for a good crop of 
honey. 
Everbearing Strawberries 
M. S. Kellogg in Wisconsin Agri- 
culturist 
Our experience in growing ever- 
bearing strawberries has been a 
success and a failure both. We 
have been on both sides of the 
fence and some of the time we 
have been on the fence, but I 
think that this fruit that has 
come to us now has a permanent- 
ly fixed place in our horticultural 
life. 
That has been demonstrated by 
something over fifteen years ex- 
periment. so they are beyond the 
experimental stage now. The 
pedigree, as you might term it, 
or the blood lines of that parti- 
cular class of fruit have been fixed 
firm enough and strong enough 
so that they reproduce themselves 
with very little variation. 
Our success has been in connec- 
tion with other of our fruit grow- 
ing operations. Some years ago 
when weather conditions were 
favorable, these strawberries 
have been marketed at a price 
that would be almost unbelievable 
if we did not have a fancy hotel 
or restaurant trade. 
We got as high as 45 cents a 
quart for some of our everbear- 
ing strawberries, and if weather 
conditions are anywhere near 
favorable, at 20 cents a quart or 
10 cents a pint, as a retail pro- 
position, they are a money mak- 
ing crop. 
They will yield if they have 
been properly cared for and given 
proper cultivation. They will 
yield approximately as much 
during the fall months as the 
June bearing varieties will yield 
during the regular strawberry 
season. Some varieties will do 
much better on certain soils than 
others. 
Progressive is the better plant 
maker. The berries are not quite 
as large as the Superb and are 
comparatively of better quality 
for a fancy trade, requiring ber- 
ries of extra quality. The Superb 
will produce better berries, larger 
size and will bring comparative- 
ly more money on the market 
than the Progressive. 
We have practiced, where we 
have been attempting to grow the 
berries as a fall crop to disbud 
the plants until about the 1st or 
loth of July, according to the 
season, and when you want your 
berries to begin to mature, if you 
allow everbearers to go their own 
gait, they will give you a crop of 
berries in June, at the same time 
the other berries will ripen, prac- 
tically. in our case they will ripen 
around five days earlier than the 
standard varieties. 
Following this they would take 
two to five weeks rest, then the 
new r blossoms appear, and it will 
take three to four weeks from 
the appearance of the first fruit 
buds until the berries begin to 
ripen. If you disbud them early 
in the season, you will get your 
berries when you want them to 
come and continue till freezing 
time. 
I remember one experiment ten 
to twelve years ago when we 
were testing out fifteen to eighteen 
varieties of these everbearing, 
and we have tried everything. 
We are looking for something a 
little better than we have. We 
have tried an experiment letting 
these berries bear into tin* summer 
on an experimental block. 
The rows were probably 12 
rods long and there were fourteen 
to fifteen rows in that block, part 
of them Dunlaps and other June 
bearing varieties, part of them the 
everbearers and actual records of 
the berries produced by the dif- 
ferent varieties, comparing the 
productivenes of the everbearers 
with the Dunlap and other 
standard varieties, they produced 
in June from 45 to 80 per cent as 
much fruit as the standard sort. 
Is farm life worth while? Not 
if it is one continual round of 
drudgery, 365 days in the year, 
without conveniences or any play- 
time. Nor, for that matter, is 
life carried on that way anywhere 
of much value. Conveniences, a 
garden, flowers, playtime, and 
some time given to neighbors, 
Go right after the common bar- 
berry in your neighborhood. Take 
it out now and plant some other 
shrub. Japanese or Thunberg 
barberry is safe to leave. In fact 
it is a much finer plant and does 
no harm. 
