Strawberry Growing-. 
BY JOHN M. STAHT.. 
By the system of pot layering it is pos¬ 
sible to have strawberries within eight or 
nine months of the time the plants are put 
out. A pot layer is simply a layer rooted 
in a pot instead of in the open ground. 
Shortly after the fruit is gathered the beds 
are thoroughly forked ewer or else cultiva¬ 
ted between the rows with a wheel hoe: 
• * 
this starts the runners to growing, and in 
two weeks they will be ready for potting. 
The pots are two or three inches in diam¬ 
eter, filled with the same soil as that in 
which the strawberries are growing, and 
are sunk to the level of the surface in the 
strawberry bed; then a layer is placed 
across the tops and weighted down to its 
place by a small stone. The stone also 
marks where the pot is, for the first rain 
will probably obliterate all marks indicating 
its location, and accomplishes yet another 
object—keeping moist the soil under it, 
thus favoring the throwing out of roots at 
the point desired. These roots will in ten 
or twelve days have filled the pot, when 
the layer is cut, severing the potted plant 
from the parent plant. The potted plants 
are grouped together and shaded and wa¬ 
tered for a few days, to insure a vigorous 
growth before they are planted out. When 
this is done, scarcely one plant in a thou¬ 
sand will fail to grow when transplanted; 
the plants may be transplanted at once, 
but when this is done more will fail to 
grow. 
We must now consider the bed into 
which they are to be transplanted. The 
soil may be of almost any character, pro¬ 
vided it is fertile and well drained. Of 
course it must contain sufficient plant food 
to nourish the plants, and this food must 
be in an available form. Thorough drain¬ 
ing is very important. If the land is not 
well drained naturally, underdrain with 
tile. Given fertility and drainage and straw¬ 
berry growing can be made a success upon 
any soil with which I am acquainted. After 
plowing or spading up the soil, spread over 
it of stable manure, well rotted, a layer 
two or three inches thick, and work the 
manure well into the soil. Stable manure 
is the best, but in place of it any good arti¬ 
ficial manure may be used, using a quan¬ 
tity equivalent to a layer of stable manure 
two or three inches thick. Of course the 
soil is made fine. 
In this bed plant out the pot layers as 
soon after July 15th, as possible. The 
sooner after this date they are planted out 
the better; but if planted as late as Septem¬ 
ber 15th, they will fruit the next season, 
though the crop will not be so large as 
when the plants are put out earlier. If the 
weather is hot and dry, place alongside of 
each plant a mulch of rough manure or dry, 
fine grass, &c., to prevent the drying out 
and heating of the ground. When this is 
done, no watering need be done unless the 
weather is very hot and dry—as hot and 
dry as I have known it to be but once in 
twenty years. The soil will need no cul¬ 
tivation other than that necessary to keep 
the weeds down for three or four weeks 
after the plants are put out. But the weeds 
must be kept down; for when they once 
get a start, much work will be required 
and the plants must be more or less injured. 
If the patch is small, hoe out the weeds by 
hand; but if you are growing berries exten¬ 
sively, you can not make a better investment 
than a good wheel hoe. The scale upon 
which they are grown should have some¬ 
thing to do with the manna* of planting 
also, in my opinion. If but a few are grown, 
I would plant them in beds, four rows to 
each bed, making the rows fifteen inches 
apart in the row. Make a pathway two 
feet wide between the beds. But when 
grown extensively, it is the better plan not 
to divide the patch into beds, but to make 
the rows two feet apart and the plants 
fifteen inches apart in the rows. This allows 
of the use of the wheel hoe better than put¬ 
ting the rows close together, and no more 
space is occupied than when the plants are 
put in beds, as directed above. 
After the plants have been placed in the 
bed four or five weeks, they will begin to 
throw out runners. These must be pinched 
or cut off as they appear. This must be 
done, else the plants will not form a bush 
Twelve to fifteen inches in diameter, hav¬ 
ing the matured crowns essential to the 
production of fruit the following June, 
