H 7 4, 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
July 17, 
Ruralisms 
The Strawberry Season. —A very 
promising strawberry crop was cut 
short by drought and extreme heat fol¬ 
lowing the unusually cool and moist 
weather of late May. The early pick¬ 
ings came soft and light in color, strik¬ 
ing an unreceptive market, glutted with 
low-grade southern berries. Fair local 
fruits realized less money than at any 
similar time for many years. Quality 
and prices steadily improved, however, 
until the full effects of the hot wave 
became apparent in lessened size and 
impaired flavor. The average yield per 
acre of good commercial plantings for 
the season would probably not reach 
:S,000 quarts, and the average price of 
first-class berries cannot be estimated 
at more than seven cents the quart, thus 
bringing possible profits to very mod¬ 
erate figures. The variety Success 
proved a heavy cropper, perfecting its 
berries better than kinds maturing later. 
Probably greater revenue is to be cred¬ 
ited to this productive early variety than 
to any of the later ones, notwithstand¬ 
ing the low prices prevailing at the 
beginning of the season, as it has been 
the most generally planted. It is ad- 
mitted to be too soft for shipment, but 
is locally liked for its good size, fine 
color and satisfactory quality. The 
plant is a most thrifty and healthy 
grower. The bloom is staminate, fur¬ 
nishing abundant pollen for other sorts 
as well, and there are always plenty of 
strong runners, making propagation 
easy and certain. William Belt shows 
increasing weakness in plant, but the 
berries are as well liked as ever, sur¬ 
passing all other established kinds for 
table quality. It will be long planted, 
but is not likely to maintain its pres¬ 
ent local importance. Glen Mary fell 
from grace this year, and may have 
difficulty in regaining its previous 
standing as an indispensable market 
variety. Vigor and productiveness are 
its strong points. It is a fair shipper, 
but quality and appearance are rarely 
commendable, though there are even 
less attractive kinds in general cultiva¬ 
tion. The main reason for growing it 
is that it is normally a great basket 
filler and a reliable, though not ex¬ 
cessive plant maker, spacing its run¬ 
ners about right for matted row cul¬ 
ture. The blooms are imperfectly 
staminate, and do not always take 
kindly to pollination from other 
sources, thus resulting in main' knotty 
and mal-formed berries. The results of 
excessive humidity at the blooming 
time of Glen Mary were apparent in 
the green-tipped and unattractive fruits 
as they appeared when packed for ship¬ 
ment. Strawberries of this class must 
“make good” every year to retain their 
popularity. President finished its 
handsome fruits as well as usual, but 
the weakened plants produced only a 
light crop. Gandy in heavy soils 
ripened a profitable crop, notwithstand¬ 
ing the intense heat prevailing at the 
lime. While rarely a bountiful yielder, 
and too sharp in quality for many pal¬ 
ates, Gandy remains one of the most 
satisfactory and dependable late straw¬ 
berries for the grower who plants in 
moist, rich soil and affords proper cul¬ 
tivation. Introduced in 1884 as a cross 
between Glendale and Jersey Queen, it 
ho'ds its own in this locality as the 
firmest, handsomest and most generally 
desirable of late varieties. 
Newer Varieties. — Cardinal and 
Stevens failed to justify this year the 
high praise accorded them in other 
localities in former seasons. The color 
of both is too dark for our markets, 
accustomed to the bright scarlet of 
Success and Gandy. Buyers fear the 
berries are stale, even when offered 
fresh from picking, and the indifferent 
quality characteristic of the newcomers 
does not always remove the impression. 
Stevens is really too sour and insipid 
to offer discriminating consumers, and 
Cardinal is not enough better to grow 
where really good kinds can be made 
to thrive. 
Alfonso, previously described in The 
R. ,N.-Y., takes highest place for qual¬ 
ity, but the berries do not average large 
enough for market purposes. It is by 
all odds the most vigorous and pro¬ 
ductive strawberry of European origin 
ever tried here. The plant is of fair 
size, with gloss}', healthy foliage and 
large staminate blooms. Fruits are 
borne through a long season. Size, 
small to medium, berries cone-shaped 
and perfectly finished; rich bright scar¬ 
let in color with prominent golden 
seeds. They remain long in good con¬ 
dition and are of rich, sugary quality, 
seldom being troubled with rot or sun- 
scald. The glossy surface of the ber¬ 
ries and firm flesh beneath render them 
excellent keepers, both on the plant and 
after picking. It is not unlikely that 
Alfonso may become a prized home 
variety when it is better known. 
Chesapeake has won favorable opin¬ 
ion where it has been fairly tested. It 
has a large vigorous plant with fine 
leathery foliage and an ample supply 
of strong runners. The berry is large, 
conical, well shaped; deep scarlet in 
color, with firm, well-flavored pinkish 
flesh. Chesapeake has a good root sys¬ 
tem and is likely to prove an excel¬ 
lent drought resister. It appears the 
most promising of new commercial 
kinds. The blooms are perfect and the 
season quite early. 
Waldorf.— This fine new variety is 
of local origin and is probably the best 
of many crosses between President and 
William Belt. It is, however, much 
earlier in ripening than either, and is 
to be classed among the earliest of 
large fruited kinds. The plant appears 
perfect in every way, healthy, vigorous 
and exceedingly productive under good 
cultural conditions. The berries are 
globular, smooth, medium to very large 
in size, bright scarlet in color, very 
agreeable in flavor and of excellent 
keeping quality. It bids fair to make a 
good shipper for distant markets; worth 
trial both for home and market uses. 
Promising New Cross-breds. —The 
Rural Grounds new cross-bred straw¬ 
berries, 248 in number, a result of 
hybridizing under glass five of the most 
successful American varieties with Al¬ 
fonso, Royal Sovereign and true 
Jucunda, the European kinds best 
adapted to our climate, made a most 
remarkable showing this year. Plants 
only 14 months from the seed formed 
clumps 16 inches across with foliage 12 
to 14 inches high, each with many fruit 
crowns. Some individuals set berries 
enough to produce a quart or more if 
allowed to develop. There was great 
diversity of form, color and size of 
fruits, as well as of quality, but the 
average was so unusually high as to 
warrant strong commendation from 
the various strawberry experts who vis¬ 
ited the fields. Productiveness, vigor, 
firmness and high quality were the pre¬ 
dominating characteristics, but a season 
or two of further testing will be needed 
to sift the wheat from the chaff. Fig. 
390, page 671, shows representative 
types of the fruits in natural size. 
These promising results would appear 
inherent in the varieties and not be¬ 
cause of special cultivation. The plants 
were all grown from seeds that ripened 
in the greenhouse in February and 
March, 1908. They were planted out 
the following June and July in very 
ordinary light soil, spacing them two 
by three feet apart. A tablespoonful of 
Peruvian guano was worked in the 
soil about each plant when established, 
and a somewhat larger amount applied 
about the first of September. The soil 
was kept mellow and reasonably free 
from weeds during the growing sea¬ 
son and all runners cut as they ap¬ 
peared. This is the ordinary hill cul¬ 
ture system except for the wider spac¬ 
ing of the plants and the indifferent 
fertility of the soil. A light mulch of 
yard manure was given in December 
to protect the crowns from the severest 
frosts. The Summer was exceedingly 
droughty, and many of the plants came 
near perishing for lack of moisture, 
while grubs destroyed or weakened 
others. Vacancies were filled with re¬ 
serve seedlings kept in pots and injec¬ 
tions of carbon bisulphide in the soil 
about the roots finally used to save the 
remainder from grub injury. This 
treatment, as reported last year, was 
entirely successful, but was not risked 
until a number of fine plants had been 
lost. 
The Indian Strawberry. —The small 
berry in Fig. 390 is an unusually large 
fruit of the yellow-flowered Asiatic 
strawberry, Fragaria Indica, a very 
handsome species much used as an or¬ 
namental plant in European conserva¬ 
tories, and to some extent naturalized 
as a hardy plant in both Europe and 
America. The seeds from which our 
fruiting plant was grown were collected 
in Western China, and evidently rep¬ 
resent a larger fruiting race than the 
one generally met with. The fruits are 
very handsome, with dark scarlet seeds 
projecting from the burnished surface 
of the berry, but the quality is flat and 
insipid, scarcely more flavor than is 
found in our wild partridge or squaw- 
berry, Mitchella repens. Many attempts 
have been made to hybridize the Indian 
strawberry with edible species in the 
hope of gaining firmness of texture in 
the progeny, but so far without suc¬ 
cess. We are informed both the late 
Andrew S. Fuller and E. P. Roe, the 
novelist and fruit lover, made unsuc¬ 
cessful experiments in this direction. 
They are worth repeating in the hope 
that by mating races different from the 
ordinary East Indian type of F. Indica, 
formerly available, commercial varieties 
and useful hybrids may yet be produced. 
While not regarded as an edible berry, 
some Chinese forms of the Indian straw¬ 
berry appear quite palatable, w. v. F. 
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