Vol. LXII1, jNo. 2839, NEW YORK, JUNE . 25, 1904. si per year. 
GUARANTEED STRAWBERRIES. 
Packing, Labeling and Selling Choice Fruit. 
Fig. 210 shows a quart basket of Glen Mary straw¬ 
berries, as grown by T. C. Kevitt, of New Jersey. He 
has been especially successful with this as a market 
variety. The label shown is a strip of parchment paper 
about eight inches long and four wide. It is laid on 
the bottom, the berries are piled on it, and the printed 
part sticks out. The idea is to guarantee that the fruit 
is honestly packed. Every berry in baskets bearing this 
label is picked by the stem and laid in the basket, not 
dropped in. But how is it possible to get the picking 
done in this way? Mr. Kevitt has found that for very 
choice berries hiring the picking done at so much a 
quart is not satisfactory. He now hires by 
the day, giving $2 for eight hours, with no 
deduction for time lost by showers. He pays 
a foreman $3 per day to do nothing but 
inspect the work. He keeps on the move 
and holds the pickers strictly to their in¬ 
structions. This seems like expensive 
business, but it puts up the berries in such 
shape that they can be depended upon. 
These berries are expected to wholesale at 
an average of 18 or 20 cents for the sea¬ 
son, and it is quite probable that all that 
get here in good condition will, but they 
must be disposed of quickly and without 
much handling. A little shaking up re¬ 
moves the gilt-edge look and puts them in 
the same class as thousands of quarts of 
common fruit. 
This plan of Mr. Kevitt’s strikes us as 
being more desirable than placing the 
grower’s card in the bottom of the basket. 
It is true that the card falls out when the 
basket is emptied, but in most cases the 
housekeeper who will pay for an extra 
grade of berries does not empty the basket 
herself; that is done by a domestic who 
is not likely to pay any attention to the 
card. The projecting tag, however, strikes 
the eye of the purchaser, and even if she 
does not select the fruit in the market, she 
is likely to inspect them when received, 
and thus is sure to be impressed by the 
advertisement. The legend “U C top U 
C all” is not original with Mr. Kevitt. 
We have seen it many times on Hale’s 
peach baskets. * _ 
BRIDGE-GRAFTED TREES. 
What To Do With Them. 
One of our readers in southern New 
York sends us the following: “What future 
course should he pursued after binding 
girdled fruit trees with waxed cloth, and 
bridge-grafting them? Should the cloth be 
left on permanently, removed or slit along 
length of tree trunk?” 
Success in saving girdled trees by bridge-grafting is 
almost wholly dependent upon the skill with which the 
grafting itself is done. When once the scions or 
bridges have “taken” the after treatment is, by some, 
considered of minor importance. Skillful orchardists, 
however, take no risks, but do what they can to assist 
nature in a sound healing of the wounds. Personally, in¬ 
stead of waxed cloths 1 should prefer to use a thorough 
coating of good grafting wax. This air and water¬ 
tight coating may be maintained indefinitely, or as long 
as the wound may need it, by simply pressing it down 
tightly in place as the growth of scions or new wood 
above and below the wound displaces it and leaves crev¬ 
ices or openings. Were I the owner of the trees in 
question I should remove the cloth from about the 
trees and substitute grafting wax. Still, this is not 
absolutely necessary, nor, for that matter, are any other 
of the careful methods of treatment. The wounds are 
sometimes banked securely with soil alone, and in some 
cases left without binding, waxing or banking—which 
seems very careless—but the prime requisites, as before 
stated, are care and painstaking attention to details in 
the insertion of the scions. Where several scions or 
“bridges” have been inserted successfully they will 
usually, in time, so far repair the work of mice or rab¬ 
bits as scarcely to leave an unsightly trace of the original 
WOUnd. F. H. BALLOU. 
Ohio Exp. Station. 
A great deal of damage was done through this part 
of the country by mice last Winter. Hundreds of fruit 
trees of all sizes were girdled. Bridge-grafting was 
tried very commonly to remedy this damage. We tried 
it on a considerable number of apple trees on the Massa¬ 
chusetts Agricultural College ground. Fig. 211, page 
490, shows one of these trees. As you will see, the ends 
of the bridge scions were first heavily covered with 
grafting wax, and were then tied in with waxed twine. 
The whole was finally covered with a wrapping of 
gunnysack loosely tied on. It is our expectation to 
remove the gunnysack whenever indications seem to 
make it desirable, either this Summer or next Spring. 
The cords which are tied around the trunk of the tree 
will be cut as soon as the growth of the trunk begins 
to make visible indentations. We think that no other 
special attention will be necessary. I may say that a 
large proportion of all the trees treated seem to be 
coming on very nicely, although as shown in the picture 
they were severely girdled. f. a. waugh. 
Massachusetts. 
I have used hot wax exclusively for several years to 
cover exposed wood in such work; then wrap with 
strip of cloth wound spirally, finishing by again using 
hot wax over bandage, effectively excluding both air 
ana water. I never remove or slit bandages, and have 
never seen the slightest inj ury in consequence, so would 
advise your correspondent, or others interested, to let 
the wrappings alone, unless they are of very strong 
cloth and several thicknesses, in which case, about the 
middle of June, I would examine to ascertain whether 
the restriction was sufficient to begin “choking,” and if 
so would slit enough to allow some loosening. I would 
much prefer that it remain on during the season, because 
in bridge-grafting a tree stock there is necessarily 
much of the inner structure exposed that cannot be 
expected to be covered with new growth 
very quickly, but should have the entire 
season, possibly some of the next. In 
every case I would wax over all bared sur¬ 
face before bandaging. As a matter of 
some interest I wish to make the state¬ 
ment that it is not necessary to put in 
scions (bridge-graft) where a tree has 
been entirely denuded of bark for several 
inches of its length, provided it is not 
gnawed deeper than the bark (all of it) ; 
that is, that the alburnum be largely cut 
away as sometimes occurs, and secondl}, 
that the wound be not allowed much ex¬ 
posure to dry out the alburnum before 
being treated with a coat of warm grafting 
wax, and preferably then wound with 
cloth. With either of these provisions 
lacking the only salvation of the tree is 
bridge-grafting. This may surprise some 
of your readers, but I have thoroughly 
proven it many times in practice. 
Iowa. FRANK 0. HARRINGTON. 
My experience is very limited as to mice 
injuring young trees. What few I have 
had occasion to treat I have simply cov¬ 
ered the injured section with grafting wax 
and let it go at that. In the case men¬ 
tioned I would leave the waxed cloth until 
the injury seemed to be somewhat re¬ 
paired, and then remove it. I should not 
think it would do any harm to leave the 
cloth on until the latter part of the Sum¬ 
mer or early Fall. j. R. Cornell. 
New York. 
VETCH AS A FORAGE CROP. 
Suppose that for the time we here in 
the East drop the Alfalfa discussion long 
enough for some of the valuable exper¬ 
iments with it now in progress to ripen 
into a fuller knowledge of its practical 
working value in our section. The prog¬ 
ress which has been made during the last 
dozen years in dairy forage management 
is encouraging. Institute work demonstrates that stub¬ 
born inertia is giving way to active interest in improve¬ 
ment. Not the men only, but the women also put ques¬ 
tions about Alfalfa and kindred subjects last Winter. 
The terms vetch and tare- are synonymous. Our Bibli¬ 
cal training has taught us to class the tare with such 
persistent but disagreeable vegetation as the Canada 
thistle or the burdock. The wheat grower perhaps has 
good reason to continue this classification, but the dairy 
farmer will take another point of view. It is no longer 
necessary to argue in favor of the leguminous crop or 
home-grown nitrogen. It will probably be a long time 
before we find anything better than our old acquaint¬ 
ances, clover and peas, for Summer use as leguminous 
forage crops. But our system calls for a Winter legume 
to stand in the rotation where wheat and rye stand. 
The vetch has been talked about, but has not attracted 
PLAN FOR ADVERTISING FANCY BERRIES. Fig. 210. 
