328 
THE NATIONAL NURSEEYMAN 
FALL BEARING STRAWBERRIES 
From the Nurseryman’s Standpoint by L. J. Farmer, Pulaski, N. Y. 
T he parent of the fall bearing strawberries, that are 
now receiving so much attention, was originated, 
or rather discovered by Samuel Cooper, of Gat- 
tragus County, N. Y,, in the fall of 1898. He called this 
variety the Pan American. From this variety, crossed 
with other kinds, have been originated all the fall bear¬ 
ing varieties of merit now before the public. 
Mr. Cooper showed plants and fruit of the Pan Amer¬ 
ican at the New York State Fair in September 1901 or 
1902. I was talking with Mr. Cooper when a party of 
nurserymen from Rochester came along, including Mr. 
Horace Hooker. I remember that Mr. Hooker seemed 
interested and expressed the belief that the fall bearing 
strawberry would be a good thing to i)ut out to the pub- 
produce as many runners as the Americus. The Stand- 
Pat produces no more runners than Pan American. 
Now in regard to fruiting capacity. The Americus 
is especially adapted to clay and other strong soils. It 
does quite well on any soil, but grows very large and 
fine on clay. It is not so productive as Francis or Pro¬ 
gressive but is very beautiful and of the very finest 
flavor. It is safest to recommend of all the varieties. 
The Superb is a very beautiful fruit, but runs to vines 
too much the first year, and will bear but a little fruit 
unless the runners are cut. The berries are very large, 
regular in shape and look as if turned in a lathe. It is 
best show berry of them all, and the Francis the most 
productive. The berries are very large, irregular in 
Showing baskets of fresh 'picked Strawberries and vines full of blossoms in October. 
lie through agents if the plants could be propagated so 
as to be sold at a moderate price. When he learned 
that the Pan American produced hardly any runners, his 
spirits fell. 
It is on this point of runner production that I want to 
speak freely. While the Pan American is a slow run¬ 
ner, and had to be divided to get new plants in any quan¬ 
tity, some of its seedlings are quite good runner pro¬ 
ducers. The Americus will produce as many runners 
as the Bubach strawberry and the Progressive will pro¬ 
duce as many runners as the Sample, enaugh to satisfy 
anybody. They require plenty of fertilizing and good 
care to do this. The Francis will produce plenty of 
runners if the soil is made exceedingly rich. The Su¬ 
perb will produce more runners than the Americus or 
Progressive under most conditions. The Productive will 
shape, reminding one of the Bubach or Edgar Queen, 
but have a fine gloss and are very attractive in the bas¬ 
kets, giving strangers the impression that the berries are 
made of wax. I always use the Francis for exhibition 
purposes at fairs and expositions. The Productive is 
inclined to produce a lot of fruit and it is fine in appear¬ 
ance in the spring but not so fine looking in the fall. The 
quality of Productive is only fair. The Progressive is 
enormously productive and the plants are healthiest of 
all. It will succeed under conditions where the others 
will fail, but the flavor of the fruit is inferior, especially 
when the weather is quite rainy. The color is dark red 
and the berries soon get very dark when exposed in mar¬ 
ket. The fall bearing strawberries all need to be picked 
and LHold the same day or the day afterwards, in order to 
