1S99 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
49s 
THE HOME OF THE STRAWBERRY. 
A HOTBED OF STRAWBERRY GROWERS. 
Radical Methods and Extra Results. 
(EDITORIAL CORRESPONDENCE.) 
0 Concluded.) 
STRAWBERRIES CONTINUOUSLY.—Among the 
older strawberry growers here is Mr. J. B. Crawford, 
who has two acres in this fruit, from which he gath¬ 
ers a crop every year continuously. He says that his 
ground must all produce strawberries every year. 
He plows up one-third of the ground each year after 
the fruit is gathered, and resets it to strawberries 
later in the season. He prefers setting the last of 
July or in August. At the time of my visit, however, 
he was picking the berries from plants which were set 
in November last, and was getting a fair crop for 
such a dry season. Had the season been favorable, 
with an abundance of rain, he would have secured 
a good crop. Thus it will be seen that he runs his 
beds three years. He uses an abundance of stable 
manure, and cultivates thoroughly. The plants are 
set in rows 30 inches apart, and cultivated with a 
horse and small-toothed cultivator. He simply wants 
the ground stirred without any soil being thrown 
around the plants. His principal varieties 
are the Bubach, Nonsuch, William Belt and 
Mary. The William Belt was giving him 
very good fruit this year, but the Mary ran 
rather small. The last-named variety 
would be better for being renewed every 
year, as it does not do so well on old beds. 
He has no disease, and but little trouble 
from insects, in spite of the continuous 
fruiting. He has secured close to 14,000 
quarts on his two acres in a single season. 
Mr. F. A. Ball has a place near Mr. 
Crawford, but his strawberries were drying 
up badly, although on good rich soil, well 
mulched with salt hay. His leading varie¬ 
ties are the Mary, Bubach and Hilton Gem. 
He says that the last is a good yielder, of 
good quality, very uniform in size and of 
fine color, a dark red like the Mary, with 
no core. He sets his plants in rows 3% 
feet apart in August. His vines were lit¬ 
erally loaded with green fruit and with 
abundance of rain the yield would have 
been immense. He also raises raspberries, 
gooseberries and currants. The raspber¬ 
ries are .Cuthberts and a new seedling 
which he secured from the West, which he 
claims beats anything else he has ever 
tried. A lot of thrifty pear trees he told 
me were Kieffers. In first setting his pear 
orchard, he set one row of Kieffers and the 
rest of other varieties; the latter nearly 
all died out. The Kieffers did so well that 
he replaced the others with this variety, 
and has no reason to regret it. The 
Kieffer, I might say, is the variety grown 
by every one here who grows pears. 
MORE MONEY IN VEGETABLES.—A lit¬ 
tle way from Mr. Jerolaman’s is the place 
of W. T. Brown, his son-in-law. He grows 
all the small fruits and considerable truck, 
besides making quite a business of selling 
plants and nursery stock. He has a seed¬ 
ling strawberry, which he considers the 
best of any for market. The size is not. 
perhaps, equal to the Mary and Henry, but 
for a good, all-’round, uniform cropper, 
he thinks it will return more money in the common 
market. Like the rest, he grows Kieffer pears be¬ 
cause there is more money in them. He has the Bur¬ 
bank, Abundance, and Red June plums, and finds 
them profitable so far. Unlike some of the other 
strawberry growers, he says the dry weather has 
saved them, because, with their rich soil and heavy 
mulching, they have secured a partial crop of straw¬ 
berries, and the larger prices received will more than 
make up for the falling off in yield. He says that, 
with abundance of rain in other strawberry-growing 
localities, prices would have dropped below the cost of 
production; still, he considers fruit growing too un¬ 
certain, and prefers truck growing because he says 
he can make more money from two crops of vege- 
taules a year than from one crop of fruit. 
OTHER FRUITS.—Mr. Jerolaman, in addition to 
strawberries, grows currants, gooseberries, grapes, ap¬ 
ples, pears and cherries. He says he has sold enough 
fruit from the place to pay for it, during any one of 
a number of different years, and the price paid for the 
place was not a small one either. He has a currant, 
a seedling of the Cherry, which he considers better 
than the Fay. His currant bushes beat anything of 
the kind I have ever seen, in size, vigor and pro¬ 
ductiveness. The same is true of gooseberries, al¬ 
though the latter fruit had been so badly burned by 
the. sun that many of the exposed fruits were com¬ 
pletely cooked. He has a seedling gooseberry which 
he considers better than the others, a cross between 
Crown Bob and another English variety. He also has 
Whitesmith and Downing. Among 26 varieties of 
grapes, the Seth Boyden, he says, is better than all 
the others put together, from a money point of view. 
A single Red Astrachan apple tree, he says, pro¬ 
duces 30 bushels every year, which never sell for less 
than $1 a bushel. Some other trees of Hyslop crab 
I 
produce still more. A small Early Richmond cherry 
tree he said gave him $25 worth of fruit. He also has 
May Duke and White Washington and like the rest, 
grows Kieffer pears. 
Some of these yields look like big ones, but the 
ground is rich, the trees vigorous, well cultivated and 
pruned, and thoroughly sprayed for insects and 
fungous diseases. This thorough culture and con¬ 
stant watchfulness show what can be accomplished on 
a small area of ground. The spaces between the rows 
of trees, and wherever ground is vacant for a time, if 
not wanted for strawberries, are used for tomatoes, 
potatoes and peas, and any crop that can occupy the 
ground to advantage. The sole aim all around is the 
production of fancy fruit, which will bring the 
highest prices, and the results certainly seem to in¬ 
dicate that this is a wise course to follow, f. h. v. 
A POTATO-CANNING FACTORY. 
Miners who have passed the Winter in the Klon¬ 
dike refer to a brand of evaporated potatoes sent from 
Canada, which have proved very satisfactory as a sub¬ 
stitute for fresh vegetables. We learned that the 
Canadian company has various factories in this coun¬ 
try and in Canada. One factory is run at Mayville, 
Mich. It started last Fall with evaporated apples, 
and then made apple cider and apple jelly. When the 
apple season was finished, they began evaporating 
potatoes, and kept at it nearly all Winter through 
the very coldest weather. The same company, we are 
told, evaporated peaches in Georgia earlier in the 
season. One of our friends in Mayville gives us the 
following information about this business: 
“How are potatoes canned?” 
“They are first washed and then put in a large vat 
or steamer, and steamed just enough to loosen the 
skins. Then they are taken out and peeled by women 
and girls. After this, they are cooked until thor¬ 
oughly done, and then run through a machine shaped 
like a colander. They come through this in long. 
white strings very much resembling long worms or 
shredded eocoanut. After this, they are evaporated 
and put up in tin cans, and sealed air-tight.” 
“About how many potatoes were canned during the 
season?” 
“Last year’s run was about 5,000 bushels.” 
“Does this make any difference in the potato mar¬ 
ket for the neighboring farmers?” 
“Yes, I think it does, although the farmers have no 
trouble in selling all the potatoes they grow, to the 
shippers. The canning factory helps to raise the 
price. Last Winter, when the factory first started, 
the shippers were paying only 20 to 22 cents a bushel 
for potatoes. The factory’s first contract was for 
3,000 bushels at 25 cents. Of course, the canners want 
the highest quality of potatoes. It is understood here 
that the factory had a contract with the United States 
Government for all the potatoes that were canned 
last Winter.” 
THE SAN JOSE SCALE. 
A Canadian Talks Hard. 
In Ruralisms for June 10, you say you have found 
the scale on a plum tree three years old. I suppose 
that, if the tree had not been dead, your 
attention would not have been drawn to it. 
You advise all fruit growers to examine 
their trees carefully. By what means 
would you advise them to do so? By going 
through their orchards and examining with 
the naked eye, and if none can be found, 
would you consider that orchard free from 
scale? When a tree is badly infested, it can 
easily be detected. Now, if you lived in the 
Niagara district. Province of Ontario, the 
whole of your trees on the Rural Grounds 
would be ordered to be destroyed, and your 
life work lost. Where the scale has been 
found in any orchard, and that but very 
slightly, inspectors come on, and the 
chances are that the scale will be found by 
examining microscopically, on 20 or 30 trees 
surrounding, and four trees are condemned 
on each side, scale or no scale, and where a 
tree has been killed outright. I know of no 
instance but that whole orchards have been 
condemned, although, perhaps, not one- 
eighth of the trees showed scale after an 
examination of every branch and twig, tak¬ 
ing from three to six hours over each tree, 
and in many cases only one single scale was 
found. 
You may ask what compensation do we 
get? A tree has to be at its very best to 
get 50 cents, even though that tree is loaded 
with fruit. I think you have told your 
readers, your grounds are very small, but 
that $20,000 had been expended on them, in 
choice trees and improvements, so I say 
that, with our rigid form of inspection and 
no more compensation than the cost of tak¬ 
ing out and burning the trees, with clean¬ 
ing up the land, it is a very good thing for 
you that the grounds are not in Ontario. 
Where did the scale originate with us? 
In every orchard where it has been found, 
without one single exception, it has been 
traced to nursery stock brought from New 
York State and New Jersey. When thou¬ 
sands and thousands of trees have been 
found infested here, how can it be possible 
that you do not have it in greater proportion, as not 
one-tenth of our nursery stock has been imported? I 
have read almost every article that has been written 
on the subject, and I find the consensus of opinion of 
the fruit-growing States is that it Is here to stay; 
that it has got ahead of us, and with the fact that it 
can both be carried by the wind and birds, how can 
it be otherwise, unless all the orchards in America 
be destroyed? Our Minister of Agriculture, with the 
very best intentions, has been making every effort 
to stamp it out, until such a cry has been raised at 
the wholesale destruction of trees, that he is now 
forming a commission to investigate the whole mat¬ 
ter. 
The inspectors here claim that it will not affect 
forest trees, that it is another scale somewhat simi¬ 
lar, but we growers think otherwise. If such is the 
case, that it infests forest trees, do you think it can 
ever be stamped out? If there are washes that will 
keep it in check, why should any tree be destroyed 
unless badly infested? There is no doubt in my mind 
that some trees are more susceptible and more easily 
destroyed than others, by the scale, such as dwarf 
pears and Japan plums. But I know one of the first 
peach orchards destroyed had been set out eight 
years, and the trees had made from 12 to 18 inches of 
new wood the previous season. 
Ontario. james carnochan. 
LEAF AND BLOSSOMS OF THE ACTINIDIA VINE. Fig. 1%. 
See Ruralisms, Page 4(18. 
