14 
We Still Think ^'Amerlcus” the Best Flavored and 
Four Years’ Experience with Fall Bearing Strawberries 
I procured my first supply of improved fall bearing strawberry plants in the 
spring of 1910. These were the Francis and Americus, The next spring, I got a 
supply of Superb and Productive. Since then I have tried Iowa, Progressive 
and several others. 
The fall bearing strawberries have been a great success with me. They 
are more persistent in blossoming in the fall than other kinds are in the 
spring. If strawberry plants blossom, they are quite sure to bear fruit, and we 
have had a plentiful supply of fruit at any time we wanted it. To distinguish 
these strawberries from spring or summer bearing kinds, we have called them 
Fall Bearing, but really they are everbearing strawberries. They begin to 
blossom in May when other kinds do, and continue to blossom as long as there 
is any growing weather. In about three .weeks after the blossom, you get ripe 
fruit, so that you can have ripe fruit at most any time after May, by properly 
Pickers at work, gathering the Fall Strawberries at L. J. Farmer’s Place, October 
20, 1910. Cut from L. J. Farmer’s Book, ^‘Farmer on the Strawberry,” 
manipulating the blossoms. With common spring'bearing varieties there is 
only one set of blossoms, and these are p^roduced in May. If frosts come at 
this time, they are destroyed and we get no fruit. With the everbearing kind, 
if one or two or several sets of blossoms are destroyed by frost, you will still 
get a crop of berries provided there is sufficient time after the blossom Is set 
to mature the fruit. Last spring, we had late frosts which destroyed nearly all 
the blossoms of the spring bearing kinds. Strawberries were the smallest crop 
in many years. The spring bearing kinds were almost an entire failure. It 
killed the blossoms of the fall bearing, yet they came out again In a week or 
so and bore an immense crop of berries in June and early July. These same 
plants that bore so heavily in June and July, without any further manipulation 
except good culture, begun to bear in August and continued to bear until the 
olossoms and berries were destroyed by heavy freezes in the fall. The straw¬ 
berry is a very hardy fruit and the only time that it is easily injured is during 
the blossoming period. After the berries set from the blossom and become as 
large as peas, It Is very hard to kill them and they will grow and ripen even 
