THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
APRIL ii 
292 
S'J RAWBERRIES IN THE MOHAWK 
VALLEY. 
On page 643 of last year’s RURAL, Mr. T. 
B. Terry gives us a short account of his 
way of cultivating the strawberry. He 
says that he probably spent 130 more on 
his half acre of strawberries than most 
horticulturists would have deemed profit¬ 
able, and yet be thinks this extra labor 
yielded him $150. I don’t doubt this for a 
moment. 
My ground is noted for its weeds, espe¬ 
cially that beautiful “national flower, the 
Golden Rod.” May the Lord have mercy 
on those wise young school marms of New 
York city for getting their charges to vote 
in the interests of that naughty and fra¬ 
grant weed ! I manage to have a clover 
sod that has been heavily manured and 
thickly seeded the previous year. After 
this is well plowed with a sod plow (with a 
jointer attachment), it is harrowed first 
parallel with the furrows, then across. 
The land is then treated with from one- 
half to a ton of unleached wood ashes, 
after which the harrow is used until the 
ground is in proper shape; then going once 
over it with a plank drag leaves it as 
smooth as a floor. A small hand marker 
is run over the piece, making the rows four 
feet apart. The plants, having been pre¬ 
viously trimmed and bunched, are set 18 
inches apart in the rows with a brick- 
mason’s trowel: and every man has a basin 
about four inches deep, holding about 300 
plants, and as he starts to transplant he 
fills the basin with plants, pulling off the 
rubbers from around them as he puts them 
into the basin, then wets the roots by 
pouring creek water into the basin. Then 
he proceeds to business, taking the trowel 
in one hand and plants in the other. After 
one gets accustomed to the work he can do 
it much faster than one would think. Some 
may think the mode too tedious, but I have 
tried various other ways of marking out 
and setting plants, but none has suited me 
as well as this. I do not approve of setting 
strawberry plants in a furrow that has been 
marked out with a plow, as they are too apt 
to get into the furrow so deep that with 
the first rain the soil will cover the crowns 
and that is death to them. I would rather 
take more time and set them properly. 
The marker does not go deeper than two 
inches; the roots of the plants being wet, 
the eoil adheres to them and they soon 
begin to grow. 
I have tried many different varieties: for 
the earliest market we plant the old Cres¬ 
cents, with enough Albany Wilsons mixed 
tnrough them to fertilize them thoroughly. 
For a later and midseason berry we use 
Jewell, of which we plant very largely. It 
is claimed to be a cross between the Jersey 
Queen and the Prince of Berries. It is of 
large size and bright red color, turning to 
crimson when very ripe. The flower is pis¬ 
tillate and the vine enormously productive. 
It will produce more in value from the same 
area than any other variety I have grown. 
The berry is very solid and firm, and the 
plants very robust and vigorous, and it has 
never shown any signs of rust or blight. With 
me it has produced from 1-32 of an acre 678 
quarts of berries besides all that were picked 
and sampled by visitors. Had it not been 
for very dry weather, the yield would have 
exceeded 500 bushels per acre. The Jessie 
has had quite a boom. I have grown it two 
years and find that after the first or second 
picking the berries are quite small and the 
plants are shy runners. The Cloud has 
proved a total failure as far as berries are 
concerned. If one wants plants, why that is 
the variety to set out. I set a few of the 
Crystal City and Gandy last spring and am 
anxious to find how they will yield. For 
covering I use coarse horse manure drawn 
and spread very evenly over the plants after 
the ground has frozen up in the fall. In the 
spring the coarse straw from the manure is 
raked into the paths between the rows as a 
mulch; the finest works through the leaves 
of the plants and protects the berries from 
the soil when it rains. 
After the bed has finished fruiting it is 
plowed and treated with a heavy dressing 
of barnyard manure ; then seeded to wheat 
or rye, and at the same time clover at the 
rate of 16 quarts per acre is sown. I never 
allow a strawberry patch to fruit more than 
one year, as the expense of keeping it clean 
for the second year would be too great. I 
would be pleased to hear the unbiased 
opinion of any person growing the follow¬ 
ing sorts as to their productiveness, 
firmness, size, etc.: Gandy, Warfield, 
Haverland, Monmouth, Pearl, Bubach No. 
5, Jersey Queen, Stephens, Lovett’s Early, 
Louise, Gypsy, Cumberland, Middlefield, 
Enhance, Parker Earle and California. 
Saratoga Co., N. Y. J. E. FORT. 
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SPRING SCIONS. 
The scandals usually accompanying Con¬ 
gressional funeral junkets, are again 
brought prominently forward by the 
Hearst obsequies. The funeral of the late 
Senator occurring in San Francisco, is said 
to have cost the government nearly, if not 
quite, $100,000, so many friends of the dead 
man having acted as mourners, while get¬ 
ting a free trip to California, with wine on 
tap during the jonrney. A list of the ex¬ 
cursionists would be in order, together 
with a bill to be passed by Congress reform¬ 
ing the practice altogether. Representa¬ 
tive Oates is responsible for the statement 
that the funeral of Senator Miller of Cali¬ 
fornia cost the government $80,000, and that 
of Senator Beck of Kentucky $53,000.—Ohio 
State Journal, (Rep.) 
Some Teachers Needed.— The adven¬ 
turous young speculator is the natural 
growth of the modern speculative spirit, 
just as the jimson weed is of a cowpen. The 
education most needed at present with a 
large class of fine-haired idlers consists in 
some rigid instruction in earning a living 
in the good old way.—Galveston News. 
We Don’t Want the Earth.— Sir John 
Macdonald need not worry about this na¬ 
tion “conspiring to annex Canada.” This 
nation has all the territory it can comfort¬ 
ably handle for some time to come. If 
Canada should become really anxious to 
enter our Union, however, we would hardly 
be so inhospitable as to shut the door in her 
face.—Omaha World-Herald. 
They Can Try.— The farmers cannot 
maintain a trust. There are too many of 
them and their necessities are too great 
and too urgent. It is only possible to 
organize great aggregations of capital into 
the forma of trusts when the contributors 
and beneficiaries are few in number. The 
mighty many are absolutely unorganizable 
and uncontrollable for such purposes.— 
Nashville American, (Dem.) 
Forbearance Not a Virtue. —The 
American people are patient and long- 
suffering, and endure not a little of insolent 
talk from pretended “citizens,” who are 
never weary of waving their national flags 
—but there is a point where forbearance 
ceases to be a virtue, and such impertin¬ 
ences will be resented. We bear too much 
about Germans, Irishmen, Italians, etc., 
from those who have sworn to be first of 
all Americans.—New York Commercial Ad¬ 
vertiser. 
LET THE IMPROVEMENT CONTINUE.— The 
election of men like Peffer, of Kausas, and 
Kyle, of South Dakota, to the United 
States Senate Is, after all, proof of an im¬ 
proved political morality in the We3t. 
These men are cranks, undoubtedly, but 
up to date their honesty has not been dis¬ 
puted. The country will be better off to 
have them in the Senate than it would be 
if their seats were occupied by some men 
who had bought them.—Troy Press. 
