1908. 
435 
INTENSIVE STRAWBERRY CULTURE. 
I want to see an article mentioned by the writer from 
'‘Sunny Tennessee,” page 333, in which mention is made 
of a New Jersey man raising 40,000 quarts of berries on an 
acre, and if possible the man’s name; failing in that his 
method of growing them. Of course it must be intensely 
intensive farming, and that is what we go in for here, 
having a well-nigh perfect system of sub-irrigation, and 
would like to try a few berries by his plan. b. h. w. 
Sanford, Fla. 
This article was printed on page 207, under Hope 
Farm Notes. The plan is advocated by T. C. Kevitt, 
of New Jersey. Instead of setting the plants wide 
apart (4x1)4 feet as many of us do) and depending 
on runners to provide a full stand, Mr. Kevitt sets 
the plants in beds one foot apart each way. Each 
bed contains four rows, making it three feet wide 
with an alley not quite two feet wide between the 
beds. These plants are kept perfectly clean and 
given thorough culture and high fertilizing. Every 
runner is cut off as it starts, so that the plant is left 
to the production of fruit buds entirely. The argu¬ 
ment is that these plants will produce more fruit than 
layer plants which run into a mat or close row. Of 
course such setting is expensive, as very many more 
plants are required to start with. It is not possible 
to work a horse in these narrow rows, and all weed¬ 
ing must be done by hand. While this plan is pos¬ 
sible we doubt if many growers can find the energy 
or patience to keep large beds clean in the season 
when other work is pressing. This year 
we are planting a bed of about 2,000 plants 
this way, only the plants are set farther 
apart—15x18 inches. Only those who have 
ever tried it can realize what a job it is to 
set out any large piece of ground in this 
way and keep it clean. 
We think, however, that it will be some¬ 
what like the handling of transplanted 
onions. The work of setting is heavy, yet 
cleaning and weeding is much easier, as 
most of it can be done with a hoe. It will 
be much the same, doubtless, with these 
berry plants. By keeping runners from 
starting we can use the wheel cultivator 
and a small, sharp hoe, where, if the run¬ 
ners were left to root finger work would 
be necessary. Mr. Kevitt has sent us a 
plant of Glen Mary which he says has been 
fruited nine years! We have now re¬ 
planted it, and would like to keep it going 
nine years more! 
THE RUR.A.I> NEW-YORKER 
berries may be best adapted to general culture, but 
there is another, which I may call the hill system, 
by which the finest dessert fruit may be grown. Set 
the plants about seven feet apart each way, allow 
only three or four canes to grow in a hill, set three 
posts around these in the form of a triangle and 
nail some wire around them for a support. Make the 
soil rich, and cultivate both ways with a horse culti¬ 
vator. In May of each year keep back all of the new 
canes, except three or four of the strongest for next 
year’s fruiting. Give clean cultivation until July, then 
mulch between the rows. If you wish to set a new 
nursery business will be very seriously damaged, if 
this pest is protected and allowed to multiply. Note 
the amount of interest that is being taken in the 
farmer’s prosperity by the town and city sportsman, 
and even some millionaire bankers, by way of wanting 
the State to protect the pheasant in order that the 
farmer’s business may be saved from utter ruin by 
insects, mice and other vermin which these sportsmen 
know would all be destroyed by the pheasants. One 
banker writes from a Western State that over $800,- 
000,000 worth of farm crops are annually destroyed in 
the United States by mice and insects which might 
„ - - - — - - - ---- CIWV*. VV UIV.U Ullglil 
patch of these berries select a deep clay loam, but nearly all be saved by the presence of these insec- 
make it only moderately rich with stable manure, for tivorous birds. I am neither a banker nor a city sports- 
raspberries, as the canes are less hardy in very man, but I am a farmer, and live on a farm, and 
rich soil, but apply plenty of wood ashes, or potash despite what any city sportsman, any game protector 
in some form. For blackberries you can use stable or anybody else that is so anxious to protect my 
manure more liberally. If you have not the plants on 
your own place, buy a few plants of a nurseryman of 
each variety you desire, and grow your own plants. 
You will lose no time in doing so, but will get a good 
bearing bed sooner and save expense and disappoint¬ 
ment. I have found the following varieties good; 
Red raspberries, Cuthbert and Golden Queen; black¬ 
caps, Kansas and Gregg; blackberries, Snyder, Erie 
and Taylor. I would also recommend Eldorado 
for trial. Fig. 188 shows blackberries in fruiting time 
which give nearly 500 bushels an acre. 
Delaware Co., N. Y. w. H. jenkins. 
SUMMER CARE OF RASPBERRIES 
AND BLACKBERRIES. 
Many old plantations of raspberries and 
blackberries that are filled with old dead 
canes and weeds can be so renewed and 
renovated that they will bear an abundance 
of fine fruit. For a number of years I 
have grown berries successfully, and I have 
found that to keep my patch in the highest 
state of productiveness the old canes 
should be removed after fruiting, and the 
young growth of small canes properly 
pruned out and thinned in the row. If this 
is neglected next year you will have a 
small crop of inferior berries, good neither 
to eat nor to sell. Blackberries and the red 
or sucker varieties of raspberries require 
similar culture. In May begin to cultivate 
and to thin plants in the row. Blackberries should 
be thinned so the plants will stand at an average 
distance of about one foot apart in the row. Save 
only the largest and best canes. The width of the 
lows may be two feet, with a space of four feet be¬ 
tween them. Keep the ground clean, with horse culti¬ 
vator and hoe, and the soil stirred about the plants. 
Keep in mind the tree form when pruning. Pinch 
off the top when the cane is about four feet high. The 
laterals will then grow and you will have a bush 
something like a tree pruned to vase form. The 
laterals should be cut back to one or two feet in 
length and the new growth will then make a bush 
of sufficient size to make a large crop, as Fig. 187 
shows. Tender varieties that must be laid down in 
Winter should not be so pruned. Blackcap rasp¬ 
berries and blackberries require more room between 
the plants in the row than red raspberries. Cultivate, 
if possible, until July, then place a heavy mulch of 
strawy manure between the rows to retain the moisture 
and furnish plant food. Set posts, four or five feet 
fiigh. Nail two pieces of board about two feet long 
and four inches wide, horizontally on the posts, one 
at the top, and one about three feet from the ground. 
Nail smooth fence wire to the ends of these boards 
or arms, to support the canes. Observe what is being 
giown in your own or similar localities, then plant 
NEW HYBRID AZALEA, A. NUDIFLORA X A. MOLLIS. FIVE 
YEARS b ROM SEED. Fig. 189. See Ruralistns, Page 438. 
MORE ABOUT THOSE N. Y. PHEASANTS. 
Will John Q. Wells, who recently wrote about “The 
Curse of Pheasants,” tell us whether putting tar on corn 
or field peas when planting will keep these birds from 
disturbing the seed or young plants? 
I have had no experience in tarring corn to prevent 
crows or other birds from digging it up, but I do 
know that here in our neighborhood, when corn is 
planted in the usual way, untreated with anything, 
that the pheasants will dig it out from the time it is 
planted until it is a foot high or more. The pheasant 
will not dig out a few kernels or spears here and 
there and then go to another field, another farm, or 
another town, but will stay right on the job. He is 
“Johnny on the spot” from early morn until dark. I 
also know that there is no other kind of grain raised 
in this section, even including beans, but has to con¬ 
tribute largely to the satisfying of his wonderful ap¬ 
petite. I also know that he will begin to destroy the 
maturing grain as soon as the kernel forms, and will 
continue as long as there is a kernel left in the field. 
I also know that he has destroyed many bushels of 
corn by alighting on the ears and stripping down the 
husks, picking out the tender kernels before they were 
matured. I also know that in my young orchards, 
both apple and peach, many thousand twigs and 
branches have been clipped off by the pheasants during 
tho Wf • nave oeen cuppea orr oy me pneasants during 
loculitv CS that are sufficientl y hardy for your the past Winter when they could not find grain to live 
locality 
The plan I have described for raspberries and black 
upon, and from the way they are developing an appe¬ 
tite in this direction it will not be long before the 
farm crops with pheasants can say, I know that the 
above statements about pheasants are facts, gleaned 
from experience right here on the farm and not from 
some city club or office, and I repeat that the sooner 
the farmers of this State conclude to wipe out this 
nuisance, the better it will be for them. I send you 
some samples of pheasant work on peach trees and 
wish to say that while most of this work is done near 
the ground there is considerable of it up in the larger 
trees - JOHN Q. WELLS. 
Ontario Co., N. Y. 
R. N.-Y.—The peach branches sent to this office by 
Mr. Wells have the twigs and tender ter¬ 
minal growth torn off, in some cases ap¬ 
parently for several inches. These ends are 
left ragged and loose, and it is easy to see 
how the trees have been injured. 
HUMAN KINDNESS AS FERTILIZER. 
Sixty acres of oats were sown in Kane 
Co., Illinois, a few days ago, under unusual 
but extremely interesting circumstances. 
Charity held rein on 70 horses, and human 
kindness guided 20 disks. In one hour’s 
time, 20 acres of the land had been sown 
to seed, and by noon of one day the whole 
of the big field was ready for the warm 
April air and the gentle rain that came in 
the night to start the seed to growing. 
This is how it happened: Andy Walsh 
was and is the tenant who has the 600-acre 
Finley farm for this year. About the* time 
that Andy was to start his gang plows on 
the work, he was kicked by a vicious horse. 
The hoof landed on his leg below the knee, 
and broke the member in two places. When 
Andy’s neighbors, Lou Judd, W. W. Wil¬ 
son and George Lye, found out what had 
happened, they were of one mind as to 
what must be done. Andy’s land must be 
seeded, or else he would lose this year’s 
crop. At once the three neighbors got busy 
on their telephones. As quick as connec¬ 
tions were made, promises were given by 
other farmers to be at the Walsh farm 
with their teams on a certain day, and 
when that day came around no less than 
20 husky men with implements and 70 
horses were gathered in Andy’s cornstalks. 
At a given signal a long row of disks began 
moving across the field, cutting down the 
stalks and pulverizing the soil. Then fol¬ 
lowed a big seeder behind a powerful 
four-horse team. It threw a shower of 
seed 45 feet wide. Then others came along and 
smoothed over the land, and soon Andy Walsh’s oats 
were ready to take root. The whole grand sight was 
watched from the window beside which the wounded 
man lay on a couch. It was a sight that almost drove 
the pain from his body, albeit it started tears to 
course down the cheeks of a stout-hearted man. 
There have been other occurrences of this kind in 
Kane County, but this was the biggest human-interest 
party that ever has been held in northern Illinois. 
It ought to be of interest to say in this connection 
that the farmers of Sugar Grove Township, for the 
most part, are associated together in what is known 
as the Sugar Grove Farmers’ Club, the object of which 
is to keep up with science in the matter of farming, 
and to promote social relations among the soil tillers. 
One meeting is held a month; the'’gathering takes 
place at a farm home and lasts all day. At least one 
farm subject is discussed, and then there are several 
musical and other parts of an exceedingly interesting 
programme. There are three of these clubs in three 
adjoining townships of Kane County, and there are 
upwards of 100 members to each club, the members 
comprising men, women, and the young people of the 
farms. Committees arrange the programmes, and 
each family contributes a basket for the feast of which 
all partake at noon. Each club owns its own chairs 
and tables, its dishes and tableware, and these arc 
hauled around to the place of the meeting. The kindly 
act described above is the direct result of the work 
of the farmers’ club in Kane County. For the farm 
and the farm home it has done more to spread farm 
intelligence and good fellowship than any other agency 
that has been employed, according to the testimony of 
the members. j. l. graff. 
