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Success with Small Fruits

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Title: Success with Small Fruits

Author: Edward Payson Roe


        
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Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SUCCESS WITH SMALL FRUITS ***




Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team.










The Works of E.P. Roe

VOLUME SEVENTEEN

SUCCESS WITH SMALL FRUITS

ILLUSTRATED

1881




I Dedicate this Book

TO

MR. CHARLES DOWNING

A Neighbor, Friend, and Horticulturist

FROM WHOM I SHALL ESTEEM IT A PRIVILEGE TO LEARN IN COMING YEARS AS I
HAVE IN THE PAST




PREFACE


A book should be judged somewhat in view of what it attempts. One of
the chief objects of this little volume is to lure men and women back
to their original calling, that of gardening. I am decidedly under the
impression that Eve helped Adam, especially as the sun declined. I am
sure that they had small fruits for breakfast, dinner and supper, and
would not be at all surprised if they ate some between meals. Even we
poor mortals who have sinned more than once, and must give our minds to
the effort not to appear unnatural in many hideous styles of dress, can
fare as well. The Adams and Eves of every generation can have an Eden
if they wish. Indeed, I know of many instances in which Eve creates a
beautiful and fruitful garden without any help from Adam.

The theologians show that we have inherited much evil from our first
parents, but, in the general disposition to have a garden, can we not
recognize a redeeming ancestral trait? I would like to contribute my
little share toward increasing this tendency, believing that as
humanity goes back to its first occupation it may also acquire some of
the primal gardener's characteristics before he listened to temptation
and ceased to be even a gentleman. When he brutally blamed the woman,
it was time he was turned out of Eden. All the best things of the
garden suggest refinement and courtesy. Nature might have contented
herself with producing seeds only, but she accompanies the prosaic
action with fragrant flowers and delicious fruit. It would be well to
remember this in the ordinary courtesies of life.

Moreover, since the fruit-garden and farm do not develop in a
straightforward, matter-of-fact way, why should I write about them
after the formal and terse fashion of a manual or scientific treatise?
The most productive varieties of fruit blossom and have some foliage
which may not be very beautiful, any more than the departures from
practical prose in this book are interesting; but, as a leafless plant
or bush, laden with fruit, would appear gaunt and naked, so, to the
writer, a book about them without any attempt at foliage and flowers
would seem unnatural. The modern chronicler has transformed history
into a fascinating story. Even science is now taught through the charms
of fiction. Shall this department of knowledge, so generally useful, be
left only to technical prose? Why should we not have a class of books
as practical as the gardens, fields, and crops, concerning which they
are written, and at the same time having much of the light, shade,
color, and life of the out-of-door world? I merely claim that I have
made an attempt in the right direction, but, like an unskillful artist,
may have so confused my lights, shades, and mixed my colors so badly,
that my pictures resemble a strawberry-bed in which the weeds have the
better of the fruit.

Liberal outlines of this work appeared in "Scribner's Magazine," but
the larger scope afforded by the book has enabled me to treat many
subjects for which there was no space in the magazine, and also to give
my views more fully concerning topics only touched upon in the serial.
As the fruits described are being improved, so in the future other and
more skillful horticulturists will develop the literature relating to
them into its true proportions.

I am greatly indebted to the instruction received at various times from
those venerable fathers and authorities on all questions relating to
Eden-like pursuits--Mr. Chas. Downing of Newburg, and Hon. Marshall P.
Wilder of Boston, Mr. J. J. Thomas, Dr. Geo. Thurber; to such valuable
works as those of A. S. Fuller, A. J. Downing, P. Barry, J. M. Merrick,
Jr.; and some English authors; to the live horticultural journals in
the East, West, and South; and, last but not least, to many plain,
practical fruit-growers who are as well informed and sensible as they
are modest in expressing their opinions.

CORNWALL-ON-THE-HUDSON, NEW YORK.



PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION


On page 315 of this volume will be found the following words: "To
attempt to describe all the strawberries that have been named would be
a task almost as interminable as useless. This whole question of
varieties presents a different phase every four or five years.
Therefore I treat the subject in my final chapter in order that I may
give revision, as often as there shall be occasion for it, without
disturbing the body of the book. A few years since certain varieties
were making almost as great a sensation as the Sharpless. They are now
regarded as little better than weeds in most localities." Now that my
publishers ask me to attempt this work of revision, I find that I
shrink from it, for reasons natural and cogent to my mind. Possibly the
reader may see them in the same light. The principles of cultivation,
treatment of soils, fertilizing, etc., remain much the same; My words
relating to these topics were penned when knowledge--the result of many
years of practical experience--was fresh in memory. Subsequent
observation has confirmed the views I then held, and, what is of far
more weight in my estimation, they have been endorsed by the best and
most thoroughly informed horticulturists in the land. I wrote what I
then thought was true; I now read what has been declared true by
highest authorities. I have more confidence in their judgment than in
my own, and, having been so fortunate as to gain their approval, I fear
to meddle with a record which, in a sense, has become theirs as well as
mine. Therefore I have decided to leave the body of the book untouched.

When I read the lists of varieties I found many that have become
obsolete, many that were never worthy of a name. Should I revise these
lists, as I fully expected to do, from time to time? At present I have
concluded that I will not, for the following reasons:

When, between six and seven years ago, I wrote the descriptions of the
various kinds of fruit then in vogue, I naturally and inevitably
reflected the small-fruit world as it then existed. The picture may
have been imperfect and distorted, but I gave it as I saw it. With all
its faults I would like to keep that picture for future reference. The
time may come when none of the varieties then so highly praised and
valued will be found in our fields or gardens. For that very reason I
should like to look back to some fixed and objective point which would
enable me to estimate the mutations which had occurred. Originators of
new varieties are apt to speak too confidently and exultantly of their
novelties; purchasers are prone to expect too much of them. Both might
obtain useful lessons by turning to a record of equally lauded
novelties of other days. Therefore I would like to leave that sketch of
varieties as seen in 1880 unaltered. To change the figure, the record
may become a landmark, enabling us to estimate future progress more
accurately. Should the book still meet with the favor which has been
accorded to it in the past, there can be frequent revisions of the
supplemental lists which are now given. Although no longer engaged in
the business of raising and selling plants, I have not lost my interest
in the plants themselves. I hope to obtain much of my recreation in
testing the new varieties offered from year to year. In engaging in
such pursuits even the most cynical cannot suspect any other purpose
than that of observing impartially the behavior of the varieties on
trial.

I will maintain my grasp on the button-hole of the reader only long
enough to state once more a pet theory--one which I hope for leisure to
test at some future time. Far be it from me to decry the disposition to
raise new seedling varieties; by this course substantial progress has
been and will be made. But there is another method of advance which may
promise even better results.

In many of the catalogues of to-day we find many of the fine old
varieties spoken of as enfeebled and fallen from their first estate.
This is why they decline in popular favor and pass into oblivion.
Little wonder that these varieties have become enfeebled, when we
remember how ninety-nine hundredths of the plants are propagated. I
will briefly apply my theory to one of the oldest kinds still in
existence--Wilson's Albany. If I should set out a bed of Wilson's this
spring, I would eventually discover a plant that surpassed the others
in vigor and productiveness--one that to a greater degree than the
others exhibited the true characteristics of the variety. I should then
clear away all the other plants near it and let this one plant
propagate itself, until there were enough runners for another bed. From
this a second selection of the best and most characteristic plants
would be made and treated in like manner. It appears to me reasonable
and in accordance with nature that, by this careful and continued
selection, an old variety could be brought to a point of excellence far
surpassing its pristine condition, and that the higher and better
strain would become fixed and uniform, unless it was again treated with
the neglect which formerly caused the deterioration. By this method of
selection and careful propagation the primal vigor shown by the
varieties which justly become popular may be but the starting-point on
a career of well-doing that can scarcely be limited. Is it asked, "Why
is not this done by plant-growers?" You, my dear reader, may be one of
the reasons. You may be ready to expend even a dollar a plant for some
untested and possibly valueless novelty, and yet be unwilling to give a
dollar a hundred for the best standard variety in existence. If I had
Wilsons propagated as I have described, and asked ten dollars a
thousand for them, nine out of ten would write back that they could buy
the variety for two dollars per thousand. So they could; and they,
could also buy horses at ten dollars each, and no one could deny that
they were horses. One of the chief incentives of nurserymen to send out
novelties is that they may have some plants for sale on which they can
make a profit. When the people are educated up to the point of paying
for quality in plants and trees as they are in respect to livestock,
there will be careful and capable men ready to supply the demand.

Beginning on page 349, the reader will find supplemental bits of
varieties which have appeared to me worthy of mention at the present
time. I may have erred in my selection of the newer candidates for
favor, and have given some unwarranted impressions in regard to them.
Let the reader remember the opinion of a veteran fruit-grower. "No
true, accurate knowledge of a variety can be had," he said, "until it
has been at least ten years in general cultivation."

I will now take my leave, in the hope that when I have something
further to say, I shall not be unwelcome.
                                             E. P. R.

    CORNWALL-ON-THE-HUDSON, N. Y.
          _January 16,1886._




CONTENTS


CHAPTER

I. PRELIMINARY PARLEY

II. THE FRUIT GARDEN

III. SMALL FRUIT FARMING AND ITS PROFITS

IV. STRAWBERRIES: THE FIVE SPECIES AND THEIR HISTORY

V. IDEAL STRAWBERRIES VERSUS THOSE OF THE FIELD AND MARKET

VI. CHOICE OF SOIL AND LOCATION

VII. PREPARING AND ENRICHING THE SOIL

VIII. PREPARATION OF SOIL BY DRAINAGE

IX. THE PREPARATION OF SOILS COMPARATIVELY UNFAVORABLE--CLAY, SAND, ETC

X. COMMERCIAL AND SPECIAL FERTILIZERS

XI. OBTAINING PLANTS AND IMPROVING OUR STOCK

XII. WHEN SHALL WE PLANT?

XIII. WHAT SHALL WE PLANT? VARIETIES, THEIR CHARACTER AND ADAPTATION TO
SOILS

XIV. SETTING OUT PLANTS

XV. CULTIVATION

XVI. A SOUTHERN STRAWBERRY FARM, AND METHODS OF CULTURE IN THE SOUTH

XVII. FORCING STRAWBERRIES UNDER GLASS

XVIII. ORIGINATING NEW VARIETIES--HYBRIDIZATION

XIX. RASPBERRIES--SPECIES, HISTORY, PROPAGATION, ETC

XX. RASPBERRIES--PRUNING--STAKING--MULCHING--WINTER PROTECTION, ETC

XXI. RASPBERRIES--VARIETIES OF THE FOREIGN AND NATIVE SPECIES

XXII. RUBUS OCCIDENTALS--BLACK-CAP AND PURPLE-CANE RASPBERRIES

XXIII. THE RASPBERRIES OF THE FUTURE

XXIV. BLACKBERRIES--VARIETIES, CULTIVATION, ETC.

XXV. CURRANTS--CHOICE OF SOIL, CULTIVATION, PRUNING, ETC.

XXVI. CURRANTS, CONTINUED--PROPAGATION, VARIETIES

XXVII. GOOSEBERRIES

XXVIII. DISEASES AND INSECT ENEMIES OF SMALL FRUITS

XXIX. PICKING AND MARKETING

XXX. IRRIGATION

XXXI. SUGGESTIVE EXPERIENCES FROM WIDELY SEPARATED LOCALITIES

XXXII. A FEW RULES AND MAXIMS

XXXIII. VARIETIES OF STRAWBERRIES

XXXIV. VARIETIES OF OTHER SMALL FRUITS

XXXV. CLOSING WORDS

APPENDIX

INDEX




CHAPTER I

PRELIMINARY PARLEY


In the ages that were somewhat shadowed, to say the least, when Nature
indulged her own wild moods in man and the world he trampled on rather
than cultivated, there was a class who in their dreams and futile
efforts became the unconscious prophets of our own time--the
Alchemists. For centuries they believed they could transmute base
metals into gold and silver. Modern knowledge enables us to work
changes more beneficial than the alchemist ever dreamed of; and it
shall be my aim to make one of these secrets as open as the sunlight in
the fields and gardens wherein the beautiful mutations occur. To turn
iron into gold would be a prosaic, barren process that might result in
trouble to all concerned, but to transform heavy black earth and
insipid rain-water into edible rubies, with celestial perfume and
ambrosial flavor, is indeed an art that appeals to the entire race, and
enlists that imperious nether organ which has never lost its power over
heart or brain. As long, therefore, as humanity's mouth waters at the
thought of morsels more delicious even than "sin under the tongue," I
am sure of an audience when I discourse of strawberries and their
kindred fruits. If apples led to the loss of Paradise, the reader will
find described hereafter a list of fruits that will enable him to
reconstruct a bit of Eden, even if the "Fall and all our woe" have left
him possessed of merely a city yard. But land in the country, breezy
hillsides, moist, sheltered valleys, sunny plains--what opportunities
for the divinest form of alchemy are here afforded to hundreds of
thousands!

Many think of the soil only in connection with the sad words of the
burial service--"Earth to earth, ashes to ashes." Let us, while we may,
gain more cheerful associations with our kindred dust. For a time it
can be earth to strawberry blossoms, ashes to bright red berries, and
their color will get into our cheeks and their rich subacid juices into
our insipid lives, constituting a mental, moral, and physical
alterative that will so change us that we shall believe in evolution
and imagine ourselves fit for a higher state of existence. One may
delve in the earth so long as to lose all dread at the thought of
sleeping in it at last; and the luscious fruits and bright-hued flowers
that come out of it, in a way no one can find out, may teach our own
resurrection more effectually than do the learned theologians.

We naturally feel that some good saints in the flesh, even though they
are "pillars of the church," need more than a "sea-change" before they
can become proper citizens of "Jerusalem the Golden;" but having
compared a raspberry bush, bending gracefully under its delicious
burden, with the insignificant seed from which it grew, we are ready to
believe in all possibilities of good. Thus we may gather more than
berries from our fruit-gardens. Nature hangs thoughts and suggestions
on every spray, and blackberry bushes give many an impressive scratch
to teach us that good and evil are very near together in this world,
and that we must be careful, while seeking the one, to avoid the other.
In every field of life those who seek the fruit too rashly are almost
sure to have a thorny experience, and to learn that prickings are
provided for those who have no consciences.

He who sees in the world around him only what strikes the eye lives in
a poor, half-furnished house; he who obtains from his garden only what
he can eat gathers but a meagre crop. If I find something besides
berries on my vines, I shall pick it if so inclined. The scientific
treatise, or precise manual, may break up the well-rooted friendship of
plants, and compel them to take leave of each other, after the
arbitrary fashion of methodical minds, but I must talk about them very
much as nature has taught me, since, in respect to out-of-door life, my
education was acquired almost wholly in the old-fashioned way at the
venerable "dame's school." Nay more, I claim that I have warrant to
gather from my horticultural texts more than can be sent to the dining
table or commission merchant. Such a matter-of-fact plant as the
currant makes some attempt to embroider its humble life with ornament,
and in April the bees will prove to you that honey may be gathered even
from a gooseberry bush. Indeed, gooseberries are like some ladies that
we all know. In their young and blossoming days they are sweet and
pink-hued, and then they grow acid, pale, and hard; but in the ripening
experience of later life they become sweet again and tender. Before
they drop from their places the bees come back for honey, and find it.

In brief, I propose to take the reader on a quiet and extended ramble
among the small fruits. It is much the same as if I said, "Let us go
a-strawberrying together," and we talked as we went over hill and
through dale in a style somewhat in harmony with our wanderings. Very
many, no doubt, will glance at these introductory words, and decline to
go with me, correctly feeling that they can find better company. Other
busy, practical souls will prefer a more compact, straightforward
treatise, that is like a lesson in a class-room, rather than a stroll
in the fields, or a tour among the fruit farms, and while sorry to lose
their company, I have no occasion to find fault.

I assure those, however, who, after this preliminary parley, decide to
go further, that I will do my best to make our excursion pleasant, and
to cause as little weariness as is possible, if we are to return with
full baskets. I shall not follow the example of some thrifty people who
invite one to go "a-berrying," but lead away from fruitful nooks,
proposing to visit them alone by stealth. All the secrets I know shall
become open ones. I shall conduct the reader to all the "good places,"
and name the good things I have discovered in half a lifetime of
research. I would, therefore, modestly hint to the practical reader--to
whom "time is money," who has an eye to the fruit only, and with whom
the question of outlay and return is ever uppermost--that he may, after
all, find it to his advantage to go with us. While we stop to gather a
flower, listen to a brook or bird, or go out of our way occasionally to
get a view, he can jog on, meeting us at every point where we "mean
business." These points shall occur so often that he will not lose as
much time as he imagines, and I think he will find my business talks
business-like--quite as practical as he desires.

To come down to the plainest of plain prose, I am not a theorist on
these subjects, nor do I dabble in small fruits as a rich and fanciful
amateur, to whom it is a matter of indifference whether his
strawberries cost five cents or a dollar a quart. As a farmer, milk
must be less expensive than champagne. I could not afford a fruit farm
at all if it did not more than pay its way, and in order to win the
confidence of the "solid men," who want no "gush" or side sentiment,
even though nature suggests some warrant for it, I will give a bit of
personal experience. Five years since, I bought a farm of twenty-three
acres that for several years had been rented, depleted, and suffered
to run wild. Thickets of brushwood extended from the fences well into
the fields, and in a notable instance across the entire place. One
portion was so stony that it could not be plowed; another so wet and
sour that even grass would not grow upon it; a third portion was not
only swampy, but liable to be overwhelmed with stones and gravel twice
a year by the sudden rising of a mountain stream. There was no fruit on
the place except apples and a very few pears and grapes. Nearly all of
the land, as I found it, was too impoverished to produce a decent crop
of strawberries. The location of the place, moreover, made it very
expensive--it cost $19,000; and yet during the third year of occupancy
the income from this place approached very nearly to the outlay, and in
1878, during which my most expensive improvements were made, in the way
of draining, taking out stones, etc., the income paid for these
improvements, for current expenses, and gave a surplus of over $1,800.
In 1879, the net income was considerably larger. In order that these
statements may not mislead any one, I will add that in my judgment only
the combined business of plants and fruit would warrant such expenses
as I have incurred. My farm is almost in the midst of a village, and
the buildings upon it greatly increased its cost. Those who propose to
raise and sell fruit only should not burden themselves with high-priced
land. Farms, even on the Hudson, can be bought at quite moderate prices
at a mile or more away from centres, and yet within easy reach of
landings and railroad depots.

Mr. Charles Downing, whose opinions on all horticultural questions are
so justly valued, remarked to me that no other fruit was so affected by
varying soils and climates as the strawberry. I have come to the
conclusion that soil, locality, and climate make such vast differences
that unless these variations are carefully studied and indicated, books
will mislead more people than they help. A man may write a treatise
admirably adapted to his own farm; but if one living a thousand, a
hundred, or even one mile away, followed the same method, he might
almost utterly fail. While certain general and foundation principles
apply to the cultivation of each genus of fruit, important
modifications and, in some instances, almost radical changes of method
must be made in view of the varied conditions in which it is grown.

It is even more important to know what varieties are best adapted to
different localities and soils. While no experienced and candid
authority will speak confidently and precisely on this point, much very
useful information and suggestion may be given by one who, instead of
theorizing, observes, questions, and records facts as they are. The
most profitable strawberry of the far South will produce scarcely any
fruit in the North, although the plant grows well; and some of our best
raspberries cannot even exist in a hot climate or upon very light
soils. In the preparation of this book it has been my aim to study
these conditions, that I might give advice useful in Florida and
Canada, New York and California, as well as at Cornwall. I have
maintained an extensive correspondence with practical fruit growers in
all sections, and have read with care contributions to the
horticultural press from widely separated localities. Not content with
this, I have visited in person the great fruit-growing centres of New
Jersey, Norfolk and Richmond, Va.; Charleston, S. C.; Augusta and
Savannah, Ga,; and several points in Florida. Thus, from actual
observation and full, free conversation, I have familiarized myself
with both the Northern and Southern aspects of this industry, while my
correspondence from the far West, Southwest, and California will, I
hope, enable me to aid the novice in those regions also.

I know in advance that my book will contain many and varied faults, but
I intend that it shall be an expression of honest opinion. I do not
like "foxy grapes" nor foxy words about them.




CHAPTER II

THE FRUIT GARDEN


_Raison d'etre_

Small fruits, to people who live in the country, are like
heaven--objects of universal desire and very general neglect. Indeed,
in a land so peculiarly adapted to their cultivation, it is difficult
to account for this neglect if you admit the premise that Americans are
civilized and intellectual. It is the trait of a savage and inferior
race to devour with immense gusto a delicious morsel, and then trust
to luck for another. People who would turn away from a dish of
"Monarch" strawberries, with their plump pink cheeks powdered with
sugar, or from a plate of melting raspberries and cream, would be
regarded as so eccentric as to suggest an asylum; but the number of
professedly intelligent and moral folk who ignore the simple means of
enjoying the ambrosial viands daily, for weeks together, is so large as
to shake one's confidence in human nature. A well-maintained fruit
garden is a comparatively rare adjunct of even stylish and pretentious
homes. In June, of all months, in sultry July and August, there arises
from innumerable country breakfast tables the pungent odor of a meat
into which the devils went but out of which there is no proof they ever
came. From the garden under the windows might have been gathered fruits
whose aroma would have tempted spirits of the air. The cabbage-patch
may be seen afar, but too often the strawberry-bed even if it exists is
hidden by weeds, and the later small fruits struggle for bare life in
some neglected corner. Indeed, an excursion into certain parts of Hew
England might suggest that many of its thrifty citizens would not have
been content in Eden until they had put its best land into onions and
tobacco. Through the superb scenery of Vermont there flows a river
whose name, one might think, would secure an unfailing tide from the
eyes of the inhabitants. The Alpine strawberry grows wild in all that
region, but the puritan smacked his lips over another gift of nature
and named the romantic stream in its honor. To account for certain
tastes or tendencies, mankind must certainly have fallen a little way,
or, if Mr. Darwin's view is correct, and we are on a slight up-grade, a
dreadful hitch and tendency to backslide has been apparent at a certain
point ever since the Hebrews sighed for the "leeks and onions of Egypt."


Of course, there is little hope for the rural soul that "loathes" the
light manna of small fruits. We must leave it to evolution for another
cycle or two. But, as already indicated, we believe that humanity in
the main has reached a point where its internal organs highly approve
of the delicious group of fruits that strayed out of Paradise, and have
not yet lost themselves among the "thorns and thistles." Indeed, modern
skill--the alchemy of our age--has wrought such wonders that Eden is
possible again to all who will take the trouble to form Eden-like
tastes and capacities.

The number who are doing this is increasing every year, The large
demand for literature relating to out-of-door life, horticultural
journals, like the fruits of which they treat, flourishing in regions
new and remote, are proof of this. The business of supplying
fruit-trees, plants, and even flowers, is becoming a vast industry. I
have been informed that one enterprising firm annually spends thousands
in advertising roses only.

But while we welcome the evidences that so many are ceasing to be
bucolic heathen, much observation has shown that the need of further
enlightenment is large indeed. It is depressing to think of the number
of homes about which fruits are conspicuous only by their
absence--homes of every class, from the laborer's cottage and pioneer's
cabin to the suburban palace. Living without books and pictures is only
a little worse than living in the country without fruits and flowers.
We must respect to some extent the old ascetics, who, in obedience to
mistaken ideas of duty, deprived themselves of the good things God
provided, even while we recognize the stupidity of such a course.
Little children are rarely so lacking in sense as to try to please
their father by contemptuously turning away from his best gifts, or by
treating them with indifference. Why do millions live in the country,
year after year, raising weeds and brambles, or a few coarse
vegetables, when the choicest fruits would grow almost as readily? They
can plead no perverted sense of duty.

It is a question hard to answer. Some, perhaps, have the delusion that
fine small fruits are as difficult to raise as orchids. They class them
with hot-house grapes. Others think they need so little attention that
they can stick a few plants in hard, poor ground and leave them to
their fate. One might as well try to raise canary-birds and kittens
together as strawberries and weeds. There is a large class who believe
in small fruits, and know their value. They enjoy them amazingly at a
friend's table, and even buy some when they are cheap., A little
greater outlay and a little intelligent effort would give them an
abundant supply from their own grounds. In a vague way they are aware
of this, and reproach themselves for their negligence, but time passes
and there is no change for the better. Why? I don't know. There are men
who rarely kiss their wives and children. For them the birds sing
unheeded and even unheard; flowers become mere objects, and sunsets
suggest only "quitting time." In theory they believe in all these
things. What can be said of them save that they simply jog on to-day as
they did yesterday, ever dimly hoping at some time or other "to live up
to their privileges"? But they usually go on from bad to worse, until,
like their neglected strawberry-beds, they are "turned under."

In cities not a hundred miles from my farm there are abodes of wealth
with spacious grounds, where, in many instances, scarcely any place is
found for small fruits. "It is cheaper and easier to buy them," it is
said. This is a sorry proof of civilization. There is no economy in the
barbaric splendor of brass buttons and livery, but merely a little
trouble (I doubt about money) is saved on the choicest luxuries of the
year. The idea of going out of their rural paradises to buy half-stale
fruit! But this class is largely at the mercy of the "hired man," or
his more disagreeable development, the pretentious smatterer, who, so
far from possessing the knowledge that the English, Scotch, or German
gardeners acquire in their long, thorough training, is a compound of
ignorance and prejudice. To hide his barrenness of mind he gives his
soul to rare plants, clipped lawns, but stints the family in all things
save his impudence. If he tells his obsequious employers that it is
easier and cheaper to buy their fruit than to raise it, of course there
is naught to do but go to the market and pick up what they can; and yet
Dr. Thurber says, with a vast deal of force, that "the unfortunate
people who buy their fruit do not know what a strawberry is."

In all truth and soberness it is a marvel and a shame that so many sane
people who profess to have passed beyond the habits of the wilderness
will not give the attention required by these unexacting fruits. The
man who has learned to write his name can learn to raise them
successfully. The ladies who know how to keep their homes neat through
the labors of their "intelligent help," could also learn to manage a
fruit garden even though employing the stupidest oaf that ever
blundered through life. The method is this: First learn how yourself,
and then let your laborer thoroughly understand that he gets no wages
unless he does as he is told. In the complicated details of a plant
farm there is much that needs constant supervision, but the work of an
ordinary fruit garden is, in the main, straightforward and simple. The
expenditure of a little time, money, and, above all things, of
seasonable labor, is so abundantly repaid that one would think that
bare self-interest would solve invariably the simple problem of supply.

As mere articles of food, these fruits are exceedingly valuable. They
are capable of sustaining severe and continued labor. For months
together we might become almost independent of butcher and doctor if we
made our places produce all that nature permits. Purple grapes will
hide unsightly buildings; currants, raspberries, and blackberries will
grow along the fences and in the corners that are left to burdocks and
brambles. I have known invalids to improve from the first day that
berries were brought to the table, and thousands would exchange their
sallow complexions, sick headaches, and general ennui for a breezy
interest in life and its abounding pleasures, if they would only take
nature's palpable hint, and enjoy the seasonable food she provides.
Belles can find better cosmetics in the fruit garden than on their
toilet tables, and she who paints her cheeks with the pure, healthful
blood that is made from nature's choicest gifts, and the exercise of
gathering them, can give her lover a kiss that will make him wish for
another.

The famous Dr. Hosack, of New York City, who attended Alexander
Hamilton after he received his fatal wound from Burr, was an enthusiast
on the subject of fruits. It was his custom to terminate his spring
course of lectures with a strawberry festival. "I must let the class
see," he said, "that we are practical as well as theoretical. Linnaeus
cured his gout and protracted his life by eating strawberries."

"They are a dear article," a friend remarked, "to gratify the appetites
of so many."

"Yes, indeed," replied the doctor, "but from our present mode of
culture they will become cheap."

It is hard to realize how scarce this fruit was sixty or seventy years
ago, but the prediction of the sagacious physician has been verified
even beyond his imagination. Strawberries are raised almost as
abundantly as potatoes, and for a month or more can be eaten as a cheap
and wholesome food by all classes, even the poorest. By a proper
selection of varieties we, in our home, feast upon them six weeks
together, and so might the majority of those whose happy lot is cast in
the country. The small area of a city yard planted with a few choice
kinds will often yield surprising returns under sensible culture.

If we cultivate these beautiful and delicious fruits we always have the
power of giving pleasure to others, and he's a churl and she a pale
reflection of Xantippe who does not covet this power. The faces of our
guests brighten as they snuff from afar the delicate aroma. Our vines
can furnish gifts that our friends will ever welcome; and by means of
their products we can pay homage to genius that will be far more
grateful than commonplace compliments. I have seen a letter from the
Hon. Wm. C. Bryant, which is a rich return for the few strawberries
that were sent to him, and the thought that they gave him pleasure
gives the donor far more. They are a gift that one can bestow and
another take without involving any compromise on either side, since
they belong to the same category as smiles, kind words, and the
universal freemasonry of friendship. Faces grow radiant over a basket
of fruit or flowers that would darken with anger at other gifts.

If, in the circle of our acquaintance, there are those shut up to the
weariness and heavy atmosphere of a sick-room, in no way can we send a
ray of sunlight athwart their pallid faces more effectually than by
placing a basket of fragrant fruit on the table beside them. Even
though the physician may render it "forbidden fruit," their eyes will
feast upon it, and the aroma will teach them that the world is not
passing on, unheeding and uncaring whether they live or die.

The Fruit and Flower Mission of New York is engaged in a beautiful and
most useful charity. Into tenement-houses and the hot close wards of
city hospitals, true sisters of mercy of the one Catholic church of
love and kindness carry the fragrant emblems of an Eden that was lost,
but may be regained even by those who have wandered farthest from its
beauty and purity. Men and women, with faces seemingly hardened and
grown rigid under the impress of vice, that but too correctly reveal
the coarse and brutal nature within, often become wistful and tender
over some simple flower or luscious fruit that recalls earlier and
happier days. These are gifts which offend no prejudices, and
inevitably suggest that which is good, sweet, wholesome and pure. For a
moment, at least, and perhaps forever, they may lead stained and
debased creatures to turn their faces heavenward. There are little
suffering children also in the hospitals; there are exiles from country
homes and country life in the city who have been swept down not by evil
but the dark tides of disaster, poverty, and disease, and to such it is
a privilege as well as a pleasure to send gifts that will tend to
revive hope and courage. That we may often avail ourselves of these
gracious opportunities of giving the equivalent of a "cup of cold
water," we should plant fruits and flowers in abundance.

One of the sad features of our time is the tendency of young people to
leave their country homes. And too often one does not need to look far
for the reason. Life at the farm-house sinks into deep ruts, and
becomes weary plodding. There are too many "one-ideaed" farmers and
farms. It is corn, potatoes, wheat, butter, or milk. The staple
production absorbs all thought and everything else is neglected. Nature
demands that young people should have variety, and furnishes it in
abundance. The stolid farmer too often ignores nature and the cravings
of youth, and insists on the heavy monotonous work of his specialty,
early and late, the year around, and then wonders why in his declining
years there are no strong young hands to lighten his toil. The boy who
might have lived a sturdy, healthful, independent life among his native
hills is a bleached and sallow youth measuring ribbons and calicoes
behind a city counter. The girl who might have been the mistress of a
tree-shadowed country house disappears under much darker shadows in
town. But for their early home life, so meagre and devoid of interest,
they might have breathed pure air all their days.

Not the least among the means of making a home attractive would be a
well-maintained fruit garden. The heart and the stomach have been found
nearer together by the metaphysicians than the physiologists, and if
the "house-mother," as the Germans say, beamed often at her children
over a great dish of berries flanked by a pitcher of unskimmed milk,
not only good blood and good feeling would be developed, but something
that the poets call "early ties."

There is one form of gambling or speculation that, within proper
limits, is entirely innocent and healthful--the raising of new seedling
fruits and the testing of new varieties. In these pursuits the elements
of chance, skill, and judgment enter so evenly that they are an
unfailing source of pleasurable excitement. The catalogues of plant,
tree, and seed dealers abound in novelties. The majority of them cannot
endure the test of being grown by the side of our well-known standard
kinds, but now and then an exceedingly valuable variety, remarkable for
certain qualities or peculiarly adapted to special localities and uses,
is developed. There is not only an unfailing pleasure in making these
discoveries, but often a large profit. If, three or four years ago, a
country boy had bought a dozen Sharpless strawberry plants, and
propagated from them, he might now obtain several hundred dollars from
their increased numbers. Time only can show whether this novelty will
become a standard variety, but at present the plants are in great
demand.

The young people of a country home may become deeply interested in
originating new seedlings. A thousand strawberry seeds will produce a
thousand new kinds, and, although the prospects are that none of them
will equal those now in favor, something very fine and superior may be
obtained. Be this as it may, if these simple natural interests prevent
boys and girls from being drawn into the maelstrom of city life until
character is formed, each plant will have a value beyond silver or gold.

One of the supreme rewards of human endeavor is a true home, and surely
it is as stupid as it is wrong to neglect some of the simplest and yet
most effectual means of securing this crown of earthly life. A home is
the product of many and varied causes, but I have yet to see the man
who will deny that delicious small fruits for eight months of the year,
and the richer pleasure even of cultivating and gathering them, may
become one of the chief contributions to this result. I use the words
"eight months" advisedly, for even now, January 29, we are enjoying
grapes that were buried in the ground last October. I suppose my
children are very material and unlike the good little people who do not
live long, but they place a white mark against the days on which we
unearth a jar of grapes.




CHAPTER III

SMALL FRUIT FARMING AND ITS PROFITS


A farm without a fruit garden may justly be regarded as proof of a low
state of civilization in the farmer. No country home should be without
such simple means of health and happiness. For obvious reasons,
however, there is not, and never can be, the same room for fruit
raising as there is for grain, grass, and stock farming. Nevertheless,
the opportunities to engage with profit in this industry on a large
scale are increasing every year. From being a luxury of a few, the
small fruits have become an article of daily food to the million. Even
the country village must have its supply, and the number of crates that
are shipped from New York city to neighboring towns is astonishingly
large. As an illustration of the rapidly enlarging demand for these
fruits, let us consider the experience of one Western city, Cincinnati.
Mr. W. H. Corbly, who is there regarded as one of the best informed on
these subjects, has gathered the following statistics: "In 1835 it was
regarded as a most wonderful thing that 100 bushels of strawberries
could be disposed of on the Cincinnati market in one day, and was
commented on as a great event. A close estimate shows that during the
summer of 1879 eighty to eighty-five thousand bushels of strawberries
were sold in Cincinnati. Of course, a large part of these berries were
shipped away, but it is estimated that nearly one half were consumed
here. About the year 1838 the cultivation of black raspberries was
commenced in this county by James Gallagher and F. A. McCormick of
Salem, Anderson township. The first year, Gallagher's largest shipment
in one day was six bushels, and McCormick's four. When they were placed
on the market, McCormick sold out at 6 1/4 cents per quart, and
Gallagher held off till McCormick had sold out, when he put his on sale
and obtained 8 1/8 cents per quart, and the demand was fully supplied.
It is estimated that the crop for the year 1879, handled in Cincinnati,
amounted to from seventy-five thousand to eighty thousand bushels--the
crop being a fairly good one--selling at an average of about two
dollars per bushel." It has been stated in "The Country Gentleman" that
about $5,000,000 worth of small fruits were sold in Michigan in one
year; and the same authority estimates that $25,000,000 worth are
consumed annually in New York city. In the future it would seem that
this demand would increase even more rapidly; for in every
fruit-growing region immense canning establishments are coming into
existence, to which the markets of the world are open. Therefore, in
addition to the thousands already embarked in this industry, still
larger numbers will engage in it during the next few years.

Those who now for the first time are turning their attention toward
this occupation may be divided mainly into two classes. The first
consists of established farmers, who, finding markets within their
reach, extend their patches of raspberries, currants, or strawberries
to such a degree that they have a surplus to sell. To the extent that
such sales are remunerative, they increase the area of fruits, until in
many instances they become virtually fruit farmers. More often a few
acres are devoted to horticulture, and the rest of the farm is carried
on in the old way.

The second class is made up chiefly of those who are unfamiliar with
the soil and its culture--mechanics, professional men, who hope to
regain health by coming back to nature, and citizens whose ill-success
or instincts suggest country life and labors. From both these classes,
and especially from the latter, I receive very many letters, containing
all kinds of questions. The chief burden on most minds, however, is
summed up in the words, "Do small fruits pay?" To meet the needs of
these two classes is one of the great aims of this work; and it is my
most earnest wish not to mislead by high-colored pictures.

Small fruits pay many people well; and unless location, soil, or
climate is hopelessly against one, the degree of profit will depend
chiefly upon his skill, judgment and industry. The raising of small
fruits is like other callings, in which some are getting rich, more
earning a fair livelihood, and not a few failing. It is a business in
which there is an abundance of sharp, keen competition; and ignorance,
poor judgment, and shiftless, idle ways will be as fatal as in the
workshop, store, or office.

Innumerable failures result from inexperience. I will give one extreme
example, which may serve to illustrate, the sanguine mental condition
of many who read of large returns in fruit culture. A young man who had
inherited a few hundred dollars wrote me that he could hire a piece of
land for a certain amount, and he wished to invest the balance--every
cent--in plants, thus leaving himself no capital with which to continue
operations, but expecting that a speedy crop would lift him at once
into a prosperous career. I wrote that under the circumstances I could
not supply him--that it would be about the same as robbery to do so;
and advised him to spend several years with a practical and successful
fruit grower and learn the business.

Most people enter upon this calling in the form of a wedge; but only
too many commence at the blunt end, investing largely at once in
everything, and therefore their business soon tapers down to nothing.
The wise begin at the point of the wedge and develop their calling
naturally, healthfully--learning, by experience and careful
observation, how to grow fruits profitably, and which kinds pay the
best. There ought also to be considerable capital to start with, and an
absence of the crushing burden of interest money. No fruits yield any
returns before the second or third year; and there are often
Unfavorable seasons and glutted markets. Nature's prizes are won by
patient, persistent industry, and not by Wall Street sleight of hand.

Location is very important. A fancy store, however well-furnished,
would be a ruinous investment at a country crossroad. The fruit farm
must be situated where there is quick and cheap access to good markets,
and often the very best market may be found at a neighboring village,
summer resort, or canning establishment. Enterprise and industry,
however, seem to surmount all obstacles. The Rev. Mr. Knox shipped his
famous "700" strawberries (afterward known to be the Jucunda, a foreign
variety) from Pittsburgh to New York, securing large returns; and, take
the country over, the most successful fruit farms seem to be located
where live men live and work. Still, if one were about to purchase,
sound judgment would suggest a very careful choice of locality with
speedy access to good markets. Mr. J. J. Thomas, editor of "The Country
Gentleman," in a paper upon the Outlook of  Fruit Culture, read before
the Western N. Y. Horticultural Society, laid down three essentials to
success: 1. Locality--a region found by experience to be adapted to
fruit growing. 2. Wise selection of varieties of each kind. 3. Care and
culture of these varieties. He certainly is excellent authority.

These obvious considerations, and the facts that have been instanced,
make it clear that brains must unite with labor and capital. Above all,
however, there must be trained, practical skill. Those succeed who
learn how; and to add a little deftness to unskilled hands is the
object of every succeeding page. At the same time, I frankly admit that
nothing can take the place of experience. I once asked an eminent
physician if a careful reading of the best medical text-books and
thorough knowledge of the materia medica could take the place of daily
study of actual disease and fit a man for practice, and he emphatically
answered, "No!" It is equally true that an intelligent man can
familiarize himself with every horticultural writer from the classic
age to our own and yet be outstripped in success by an ignorant Irish
laborer who has learned the little he knows in the school of
experience. The probabilities are, however, that the laborer will
remain such all his days, while the thoughtful, reading man, who is too
sensible to be carried away by theories, and who supplements his
science with experience, may enrich not only himself but the world.

Still, there is no doubt that the chances of success are largely in
favor of the class I first named,--the farmers who turn their attention
in part or wholly toward fruit growing. They are accustomed to hard
out-of-door work and the general principles of agriculture. The first
is always essential to success; and a good farmer can soon become
equally skillful in the care of fruits if he gives his mind to their
culture. The heavy, stupid, prejudiced plodder who thinks a thing is
right solely because his grandfather did it, is a bucolic monster that
is receding so fast into remote wilds before the horticultural press
that he scarcely need be taken into account. Therefore, the citizen or
professional man inclined to engage in fruit farming should remember
that he must compete with the hardy, intelligent sons of the soil, who
in most instances are crowning their practical experience with careful
reading. I do not say this to discourage any one, but only to secure a
thoughtful and adequate consideration of the subject before the small
accumulations of years are embarked in what may be a very doubtful
venture. Many have been misled to heavy loss by enthusiastic works on
horticulture; I wish my little book to lead only to success.

If white-handed, hollow-chested professional men anxious to acquire
money, muscle, and health by fruit raising,--if citizens disgusted with
pavements and crowds are willing to take counsel of common-sense and
learn the business practically and thoroughly, why should they not
succeed? But let no one imagine that horticulture is the final resort
of ignorance, indolence, or incapacity, physical or mental. Impostors
palm themselves off on the world daily; a credulous public takes
poisonous nostrums by the ton and butt; but Nature recognizes error
every time, and quietly thwarts those who try to wrong her, either
wilfully or blunderingly.

Mr. Peter Henderson, who has been engaged practically in vegetable
gardening for over a quarter of a century, states, as a result of his
experience, that capital, at the rate of $300 per acre, is required in
starting a "truck farm," and that the great majority fail who make the
attempt with less means. In my opinion, the fruit farmer would require
capital in like proportion; for, while many of the small fruits can be
grown with less preparation of soil and outlay in manure, the returns
come more slowly, since, with the exception of strawberries, none of
them yield a full crop until the third or fourth year. I advise most
urgently against the incurring of heavy debts. Better begin with three
acres than thirty, or three hundred, from which a large sum of interest
money must be obtained before a penny can be used for other purposes.
Anything can be raised from a farm easier than a mortgage.

Success depends very largely, also, on the character of the soil. If it
is so high and dry as to suffer severely from drought two years out of
three, it cannot be made to pay except by irrigation; if so low as to
be wet, rather than moist, the prospects are but little better. Those
who are permanently settled must do their best with such land as they
have, and in a later chapter I shall suggest how differing soils should
be managed. To those who can still choose their location, I would
recommend a deep mellow loam, with a rather compact subsoil,--moist,
but capable of thorough drainage. Diversity of soil and exposure offer
peculiar advantages also. Some fruits thrive best in a stiff clay,
others in sandy upland. Early varieties ripen earlier on a sunny slope,
while a late kind is rendered later on a northern hillside, or in the
partial shade of a grove. In treating each fruit and variety, I shall
try to indicate the soils and exposures to which they are best adapted.

_Profits_.--The reader will naturally wish for some definite statements
of the profits of fruit farming; but I almost hesitate to comply with
this desire. A gentleman wrote to me that he sold from an acre of
Cuthbert raspberries $800 worth of fruit. In view of this fact, not a
few will sit down and begin to figure,--"If one acre yielded $800, ten
acres would produce $8,000; twenty acres $16,000," etc. Multitudes have
been led into trouble by this kind of reasoning. The capacity of an
engine with a given motor power can be measured, and certain and
unvarying results predicted; but who can measure the resources of an
acre through varying seasons and under differing culture, or foretell
the price of the crops? In estimating future profits, we can only
approximate; and the following records are given merely to show what
results have been secured, and therefore may be obtained again, and
even surpassed. "The Country Gentleman" gives a well-authenticated
instance of a fruit grower who "received more than $2,000 from three
acres of strawberries." In contrast, however, it could be shown that
many fields have not paid expenses. I once had such an experience. The
market was "glutted," and the variety yielded berries so small and poor
that they did not average five cents per quart. Occasionally we hear of
immense shipments from the South being thrown into the dock.


Mr. William Parry, a veteran fruit grower in New Jersey, states the
truth I wish to convey very clearly, and gives a fair mean between
these two extremes:

"YIELD AND PROFIT

"There are so many circumstances connected with strawberry growing,
such as varieties, soil, climate, location, markets, and the skill and
management of the grower, that the results of a few cases cannot be
relied on for general rules.

"We have grown over two hundred bushels per acre here, and realized
upward of six hundred dollars per acre for the crop; but that is much
above the general average. Having kept a careful record, for fourteen
years past, of the yield per acre and price per quart at which our
strawberries have been sold, we find the average to be about 2,500
quarts per acre, and the price eleven cents per quart in market, giving
the following results:

    "Commissions, 10 per cent                 $27.50
     Picking 2,500 quarts, at 2c. per quart    50.00
     Manure                                    17.50
     Use of baskets                            10.00
     Cultivation, etc                          25.00
     Net profits per acre                     145.00

    "Gross proceeds, 2,500 quarts at 11e     $275.00"

In the year 1876 the same gentleman had ten acres of Brandywine
raspberries that yielded about eighty-two bushels to the acre, giving a
clear profit of $280, or of $2,800 for the entire area. This crop, so
far from being the average, was awarded a premium as the most
profitable that year in the section.

J. R. Gaston & Sons, of Normal, Ill., have given the following record
of a plantation of Snyder blackberries: "We commenced to pick a field
of seven acres July 12th, and finished picking August 22. The total
amount gathered was 43,575 quarts, equal to 1,361 bushels and 22
quarts. The average price was eight cents per quart, making the gross
proceeds equal to $3,486. We paid for picking $435.75. The cost of
trimming and cultivating was about $400; cost of boxes, crates, and
marketing was $1,307.25, leaving a net profit of $1,343."

A gentleman in Ulster Co., N.Y., stated that 200 bushes of the Cherry
currant yielded him in one season 1,000 lbs. of fruit, which was sold
at an average of eight cents per pound. His gross receipts were $80
from one-fourteenth of an acre, and at the same ratio an acre would
have yielded $1,120. Is this an average yield? So far from it, there
are many acres of currants and gooseberries that do not pay expenses.
Thus it can be seen that the scale ranges from marvellous prizes down
to blanks and heavy losses; but the drawing is not a game of chance,
but usually the result of skill and industry, or their reverse.

I might have given many examples of large, and even enormously large,
profits obtained under exceptional circumstances; but they tend to
mislead. I write for those whose hearts prompt them to co-work with
nature, and who are most happy when doing her bidding in the breezy
fields and gardens, content with fair rewards, instead of being
consumed by the gambler's greed for unearned gold. At the same time, I
am decidedly in favor of high culture, and the most generous enriching
of the soil; convinced that fruit growers and farmers in general would
make far more money if they spent upon one acre what they usually
expend on three. In a later chapter will be found an instance of an
expenditure of $350 per acre on strawberry land, and the net profits
obtained were proportionately large.




CHAPTER IV

STRAWBERRIES: THE FIVE SPECIES AND THEIR HISTORY


The conscientious Diedrich Knickerbocker, that venerated historian from
whom all good citizens of New York obtain the first impressions of
their ancestry, felt that he had no right to chronicle the vicissitudes
of Manhattan Island until he had first accounted for the universe of
which it is a part. Equally with the important bit of land named, the
strawberry belongs to the existing cosmos, and might be traced back to
"old chaos." I hasten to re-assure the dismayed reader. I shall not
presume to follow one who could illumine his page with genius, and
whose extensive learning enabled him to account for the universe not
merely in one but in half a dozen ways.

It is the tendency of the present age to ask what is, not what has been
or shall be. And yet, on the part of some, as they deliberately enjoy a
saucer of strawberries and cream,--it is a pleasure that we prolong for
obvious reasons,--a languid curiosity may arise as to the origin and
history of so delicious a fruit. I suppose Mr. Darwin would say, "it
was evolved." But some specimens between our lips suggest that a Geneva
watch could put itself together quite as readily. At the same time, it
must be said that our "rude forefathers" did not eat Monarch or Charles
Downing strawberries. In few fruits, probably, have there been such
vast changes or improvements as in this. Therefore, I shall answer
briefly and as well as I can, in view of the meagre data and
conflicting opinions of the authorities, the curiosity, that I have
imagined on some faces. Those who care only for the strawberry of
to-day can easily skip a few pages.

If there were as much doubt about a crop of this fruit as concerning
the origin of its name, the outlook would be dismal, indeed. In old
Saxon, the word was streawberige or streowberrie; and was so named,
says one authority, "from the straw-like stems of the plant, or from
the berries lying strewn upon the ground." Another authority tells us:
"It is an old English practice" (let us hope a modern one also) "to lay
straw between the rows to preserve the fruit from rotting on the wet
ground, from which the name has been supposed to be derived; although
more probably it is from the wandering habit of the plant, straw being
a corruption of the Anglo-Saxon strae, from which we have the English
verb stray." Again tradition asserts that in the olden times children
strung the berries on straws for sale, and hence the name. Several
other causes have been suggested, but I forbear. I have never known,
however, a person to decline the fruit on the ground of this obscurity
and doubt. (Controversialists and sceptics please take note.)

That the strawberry should belong to the rose family, and that its
botanical name should be fragaria, from the Latin fragro, to smell
sweetly, will seem both natural and appropriate.

While for his knowledge of the plant I refer the reader to every
hillside and field (would that I might say, to every garden!), there is
a peculiarity in the production of the fruit which should not pass
unnoted. Strictly speaking, the small seeds scattered over the surface
of the berry are the fruit, and it is to perfect these seeds that the
plants blossom, the stamens scatter, and the pistils receive the pollen
on the convex receptacle, which, as the seeds ripen, greatly enlarges,
and becomes the pulpy and delicious mass that is popularly regarded as
the fruit. So far from being the fruit, it is only "the much altered
end of the stem" that sustains the fruit or seeds; and so it becomes a
beautiful illustration of a kindly, genuine courtesy, which renders an
ordinary service with so much grace and graciousness that we dwell on
the manner with far more pleasure than on the service itself. The
innumerable varieties of strawberries that are now in existence appear,
either in their character or origin, to belong to five great and quite
distinct species. The first, and for a long time the only one of which
we have any record, is the Fragaria vesca, or the "Alpine" strawberry.
It is one of the most widely spread fruits of the world, for it grows,
and for centuries has grown, wild throughout Northern and Central
Europe and Asia, following the mountains far to the south; and on this
continent, from time immemorial, the Indian children have gathered it,
from the Northern Atlantic to the Pacific. In England this species
exhibits some variation from the Alpine type, and was called by our
ancestors the Wood strawberry. The chief difference between the two is
in the form of the fruit, the Wood varieties being round and the Alpine
conical. They are also subdivided into white and red, annual and
monthly varieties, and those that produce no runners, which are known
to-day as Bush Alpines.

[Illustration: SEEDS AND PULP OF THE STRAWBERRY]

The Alpine, as we find it growing wild, was the strawberry of the
ancients. It is to it that the suggestive lines of Virgil refer:--

   "Ye boys that gather flowers and strawberries,
     Lo, hid within the grass an adder lies."

There is no proof, I believe, that the strawberry was cultivated during
any of the earlier civilizations. Some who wrote most explicitly
concerning the fruit culture of their time do not mention it; and
Virgil, Ovid, and Pliny name it but casually, and with no reference to
its cultivation. It may appear a little strange that the luxurious
Romans, who fed on nightingales' tongues, peacocks' brains, and scoured
earth and air for delicacies, should have given but little attention to
this fruit. Possibly they early learned the fact that this species is
essentially a wildling, and like the trailing arbutus, thrives best in
its natural haunts. The best that grew could be gathered from
mountain-slopes and in the crevices of rocks. Moreover, those old
revellers became too wicked and sensual to relish Alpine strawberries.

Its congener, the Wood strawberry, was the burden of one of the London
street cries four hundred years ago; and to-day the same cry, in some
language or other, echoes around the northern hemisphere as one of the
inevitable and welcome sounds of spring and early summer.

But few, perhaps, associate this lovely little fruit, that is almost as
delicate and shy as the anemone, with tragedy; and yet its chief
poetical associations are among the darkest and saddest that can be
imagined. Shakespeare's mention of the strawberry in the play of
Richard III. was an unconscious but remarkable illustration of the
second line already quoted from Virgil:--

     "Lo, hid within the grass an adder lies."

The bit of history which is the occasion of this allusion is given in
the quaint old English of Sir Thomas More, who thus describes the
entrance to the Council of the terrible "Protector," from whom nothing
good or sacred could be protected. He came "fyrste about IX of the
clocke, saluting them curtesly, and excusing himself that he had been
from them so long, saieing merily that he had been a slepe that day.
And after a little talking with them he said unto the bishop of Elye,
my lord, You have very good strawberries at your gardayne in Holberne,
I require you let us have a messe of them." He who has raised fine
fruit will know how eagerly the flattered bishop obeyed. According to
the poet, the dissembler also leaves the apartment, with his
unscrupulous ally, Buckingham.

   "Where is my lord protector? I have sent
    For these strawberries,"

said the Bishop of Ely, re-entering.

Lord Hastings looks around with an air of general congratulation, and
remarks:--

   "His grace looks cheerfully and smooth this morning;
    There's some conceit or other likes him well."

The serpent is hidden, but very near. A moment later, Gloster enters,
black as night, hisses his monstrous charge, and before noon of that
same day poor Hastings is a headless corpse.

Far more sad and pitiful are the scenes recalled by the words of the
fiendish Iago,--type for all time of those who transmute love into
jealousy:--

        "Tell me but this--
    Have you not sometimes seen a handkerchief,
    Spotted with strawberries, in your wife's hand?"
    "I gave her such a one; 'twas my first gift."

was the answer of a man whom the world will never forgive, in spite of
his immeasurable remorse.

From the poet Spenser we learn that to go a-strawberrying was one of
the earliest pastimes of the English people. In the "Faerie Queen" we
find these lines:--

   "One day, as they all three together went
        To the green wood to gather strawberries,
    There chaunst to them a dangerous accident."

Very old, too is the following nursery rhyme, which, nevertheless,
suggests the true habitat of the F. vesca species:--

   "The man of the wilderness asked me
    How many strawberries grew in the sea;
    I answered him, as I thought good,
    'As many red herrings as grew in the wood.'"

The ambrosial combination of strawberries and cream was first named by
Sir Philip Sidney. Old Thomas Tusser, of the 16th century, in his work,
"Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry united to as many of Good
Housewifery," turns the strawberry question over to his wife, and
doubtless it was in better hands than his, if his methods of culture
were as rude as his poetry:--

   "Wife, into the garden, and set me a plot
    With strawberry roots, of the best to be got;
    Such, growing abroad, among thorns in the wood,
    Well chosen and picked prove excellent good."

Who "Dr. Boteler" was, or what he did, is unknown, but he made a
sententious remark which led Izaak Walton to give him immortality in
his work, "The Compleat Angler." "Indeed, my good schollar," the serene
Izaak writes, "we may say of angling as Dr. Boteler said of
strawberries, 'Doubtless God could have made a better berry, but
doubtless God never did;' and so if I might be judge, God never did
make a more calm, quiet, innocent recreation than angling." If this was
true of the wild Wood strawberry, how much more so of many of our
aromatic rubies of to-day.


John Parkinson, the apothecary-gardener of London, whose quaint work
was published in 1629, is not so enthusiastic. He says of the wild
strawberry: "It may be eaten or chewed in the mouth without any manner
of offense; it is no great bearer, but those it doth beare are set at
the toppes of the stalks, close together, pleasant to behold, and fit
for a gentlewoman to wear on her arme, &c., as a raritie instead of a
flower."

In England, the strawberry leaf is part of the insignia of high rank,
since it appears in the coronets of a duke, marquis, and earl. "He
aspires to the strawberry leaves" is a well-known phrase abroad, and
the idea occurs several times in the novels of Disraeli, the present
British Premier. Thackeray, in his "Book of Snobs," writes: "The
strawberry leaves on her chariot panels are engraved on her ladyship's
heart."

After all, perhaps it is not strange that the Alpine species should be
allied to some dark memories, for it was the only kind known when the
age was darkened by passion and crime.

The one other allusion to the strawberry in Shakespeare is peculiarly
appropriate to the species under consideration. In the play of Henry
V., an earlier Bishop of Ely says:--

   "The strawberry grows underneath the nettle,
    And wholesome berries thrive and ripen best
    Neighbored by fruit of baser quality."

And this, probably, is still true, for the Alpine and Wood strawberries
tend to reproduce themselves with such unvarying exactness that
cultivation makes but little difference.

All these allusions apply to the F. vesca or Alpine species, and little
advance was made in strawberry culture in Europe until after the
introduction of other species more capable of variation and
improvement. Still, attempts were made from time to time. As the Alpine
differed somewhat from the Wood strawberry, they were brought to
England about 200 years later than the tragedy of Lord Hastings' death,
which has been referred to.

In connection with the White and Red Wood and Alpine strawberries, we
find in 1623 the name of the "Hautbois" or Haarbeer strawberry, the
Fragaria elatior of the botanists. This second species, a native of
Germany, resembles the Alpine in some respects, but is a larger and
stockier plant. Like the Fragaria vesca, its fruit-stalks are erect and
longer than the leaves, but the latter are larger than the foliage of
the Alpine, and are covered with short hairs, both on the upper and
under surface, which give them a rough appearance. As far as I can
learn, this species still further resembles the Alpines in possessing
little capability of improvement and variation. Even at this late day
the various named kinds are said to differ from each other but
slightly. There is a very marked contrast, however, between the fruit
of the Hautbois and Alpine species, for the former has a peculiar musky
flavor which has never found much favor in this country. It is,
therefore, a comparatively rare fruit in our gardens, nor do we find
much said of it in the past.

There is scarcely any record of progress until after the introduction
of the two great American species. It is true that in 1660 a fruit
grower at Montreuil, France, is "said to have produced a new variety
from the seed of the Wood strawberry," which was called the "Cappron,"
and afterward the "Fressant." It was named as a distinct variety one
hundred years later, but it may be doubted whether it differed greatly
from its parent. Be this as it may, it is said to be the first improved
variety of which there is any record.

Early in the 17th century, intercourse with this continent led to the
introduction of the most valuable species in existence, the "Virginian"
strawberry (Fragaria Virginiana), which grows wild from the Arctic
regions to Florida, and westward to the Rocky Mountains. It is first
named in the catalogue of Jean Robin, botanist to Louis XIII., in 1624.
During the first century of its career in England, it was not
appreciated, but as its wonderful capacity for variation and
improvement--in which it formed so marked a contrast to the Wood
strawberry--was discovered, it began to receive the attention it
deserved. English gardeners learned the fact, of which we are making so
much to-day, that by simply sowing its seeds, new and possibly better
varieties could be produced. From that time and forward, the tendency
has increased to originate, name and send out innumerable seedlings,
the majority of which soon pass into oblivion, while a few survive and
become popular, usually in proportion to their merit.

The Fragaria Virginiana, therefore, the common wild strawberry that is
found in all parts of North America east of the Rocky Mountains, is the
parent of nine-tenths of the varieties grown in our gardens; and its
improved descendants furnish nearly all of the strawberries of our
markets. As we have seen, the Fragaria vesca, or the Alpine species of
Europe, is substantially the same to-day as it was a thousand years
ago. But the capacity of the Virginian strawberry for change and
improvement is shown by those great landmarks in the American culture
of this fruit,--the production of Hovey's Seedling by C. M. Hovey, of
Cambridge, Mass., forty-five years since; of the Wilson's Albany
Seedling, originated by John Wilson, of Albany, N. Y., about
twenty-five years ago, and, in our own time, of the superb varieties,
Monarch of the West, Seth Boyden, Charles Downing, and Sharpless.

As in the Alpine species there are two distinct strains,--the Alpine of
the Continent, and the Wood strawberry of England,--so in the wild
Virginian species there are two branches of the family,--the Eastern
and the Western. The differences are so marked that some writers have
asserted that there are two species; but we have the authority of
Professor Gray for saying that the Western, or Fragaria Illincensis, is
"perhaps" a distinct species, and he classifies it as only a very
marked variety.

There are but two more species of the strawberry genus. Of the first of
these, the Fragaria Indica, or "Indian" strawberry, there is little to
say. It is a native of Northern India, and differs so much from the
other species that it was formerly named as a distinct genus. It has
yellow flowers, and is a showy house-plant, especially for
window-baskets, but the fruit is dry and tasteless. It is said by
Professor Gray to have escaped cultivation and become wild in some
localities of this country.

Fragaria Chilensis is the last great species or subdivision that we now
have to consider. Like the F. Virginiana, it is a native of the
American continent, and yet we have learned to associate it almost
wholly with Europe. It grows wild on the Pacific slope, from Oregon to
Chili, creeping higher and higher up the mountains as its habitat
approaches the equator. "It is a large, robust species, with very firm,
thick leaflets, soft and silky on the under side." The flowers are
larger than in the other species; the fruit, also, in its native
condition, averages much larger, stands erect instead of hanging,
ripens late, is rose-colored, firm and sweet in flesh, and does not
require as much heat to develop its saccharine constituents; but it
lacks the peculiar sprightliness and aroma of the Virginia strawberry.
It has become, however, the favorite stock of the European gardeners,
and seems better adapted to transatlantic climate and soil than to
ours. The first mention of the Fragaria Chilensis, or South American
strawberry, says Mr. Fuller, "is by M. Frezier, who, in 1716, in his
journey to the South Sea, found it at the foot of the Cordillera
mountains near Quito, and carried it home to Marseilles, France." At
that time it was called the Chili strawberry, and the Spaniards said
that they brought it from Mexico.

From Mr. W. Collett Sandars, an English antiquarian, I learned that
seven plants were shipped from Chili and were kept alive during the
voyage by water which M. Frezier saved from his allowance, much limited
owing to a shortness of supply. He gave two of the plants to M. de
Jessieu, "who cultivated them with fair success in the royal gardens."
In 1727, the Chili strawberry was introduced to England, but not being
understood it did not win much favor.

Mr. Fuller further states: "We do not learn from any of the old French
works that new varieties were raised from the Chili strawberry for at
least fifty years after its introduction." Duchesne, in 1766, says that
"Miller considered its cultivation abandoned in England on account of
its sterility. The importations from other portions of South America
appeared to have met with better success; and, early in the present
century, new varieties of the F. Chilensis, as well as of the
Virginiana, became quite abundant in England and on the Continent."

If we may judge from the characteristics of the varieties imported to
this country of late years, the South American species has taken the
lead decidedly abroad, and has become the parent stock from which
foreign culturists, in the main, are seeking to develop the ideal
strawberry. But in all its transformations, and after all the attempts
to infuse into it the sturdier life of the Virginian strawberry, it
still remembers its birthplace, and falters and often dies in the
severe cold of our winters, or, what is still worse, the heat and
drought of our summers. As a species, it requires the high and careful
culture that they are able and willing to give it in Europe. The
majority of imported varieties have failed in the United States, but a
few have become justly popular in regions where they can be grown. The
Triomphe de Gand may be given as an example, and were I restricted to
one variety I should take this. The Jucunda, also, is one of the most
superb berries in existence; and can be grown with great profit in many
localities.

Thus the two great species which to-day are furnishing ninety-nine
hundredths of the strawberries of commerce and of the garden, both in
this country and abroad, came from America, the Fragaria Chilensis
reaching our Eastern States by the way of Europe, and in the form of
the improved and cultivated varieties that have won a name abroad. We
are crossing the importations with our own native stock. President
Wilder's superb seedling, which has received his name, is an example of
this blending process. This berry is a child of the La Constante and
Hovey's Seedling, and, therefore, in this one beautiful and most
delicious variety we have united the characteristics of the two chief
strawberry species of the world, the F. Virginiana and F. Chilensis.

It will be seen that the great law of race extends even to strawberry
plants. As in the most refined and cultivated peoples there is a strain
of the old native stock, which ever remains, a source of weakness or
strength, and will surely show itself in certain emergencies, so the
superb new varieties of strawberries, the latest products of
horticultural skill, speedily indicate in the rough-and-tumble of
ordinary culture whether they have derived their life from the hardy F.
Virginiana or the tender and fastidious F. Chilensis. The Monarch of
the West and the Jucunda are the patricians of the garden, and on the
heavy portions of my land at Cornwall I can scarcely say to which I
give the preference. But the Monarch is Anglo-Saxon and the Jucunda is
of a Latin race; or to drop metaphor, the former comes of a species
that can adapt itself to conditions extremely varied, and even very
unfavorable, and the latter cannot.




CHAPTER V

IDEAL STEAWBERRIES VERSUS THOSE OF THE FIELD AND MARKET


There are certain strong, coarse-feeding vegetables, like corn and
potatoes, that can be grown on the half-subdued and comparatively poor
soil of the field; but no gardener would think of planting the finer
and more delicate sorts in such situations. There are but few who do
not know that they can raise cauliflowers and egg-plants only on deep,
rich land. The parallel holds good with this fruit. There are
strawberries that will grow almost anywhere, and under any
circumstances, and there is another class that demands the best ground
and culture. But from the soil of a good garden, with a little pains,
we can obtain the finest fruit in existence; and there is no occasion
to plant those kinds which are grown for market solely because they are
productive, and hard enough to endure carriage for a long distance. The
only transportation to be considered is from the garden to the table,
and therefore we can make table qualities our chief concern. If our
soil is light and sandy, we can raise successfully one class of choice,
high-flavored varieties; if heavy, another class. Many worry over a
forlorn, weedy bed of some inferior variety that scarcely gives a
week's supply, when, with no more trouble than is required to obtain a
crop of celery, large, delicious berries might be enjoyed daily, for
six weeks together, from twenty different kinds.

The strawberry of commerce is a much more difficult problem. The
present unsatisfactory condition of affairs was admirably expressed in
the following editorial in the "Evening Post" of June 12, 1876, from
the pen of the late William Cullen Bryant:--

STRAWBERRIES "In general, an improvement has been observed of late in
the quality of fruit. We have more and finer varieties of apple; the
pear is much better in general than it was ten years since; of the
grape there are many new and excellent varieties which the market knew
nothing of a few years ago, and there are some excellent varieties of
the raspberry lately introduced. But the strawberry has decidedly
deteriorated, and the result is owing to the general culture of
Wilson's Albany for the market. Wilson's Albany is a sour, crude berry,
which is not fully ripe when it is perfectly red, and even when
perfectly ripe is still too acid. When it first makes its appearance in
the market, it has an exceedingly harsh flavor and very little of the
agreeable aroma which distinguishes the finer kinds of the berry. If
not eaten very sparingly, it disagrees with the stomach, and you wake
with a colic the next morning. Before Wilson's strawberry came into
vogue there were many other kinds which were sweeter and of a more
agreeable flavor. But the Wilson is a hard berry, which bears
transportation well; it is exceedingly prolific and altogether
hardy,--qualities which give it great favor with the cultivator, but for
which the consumer suffers. The proper way of dealing in strawberries
is to fix the prices according to the quality of the sort. This is the
way they do in the markets of Paris. A poor sort, although the berry
may be large, is sold cheap; the more delicate kinds--the sweet, juicy,
and high-flavored--are disposed of at a higher price. Here the Wilson
should be sold the cheapest of all, while such as the Jucunda and the
President Wilder should bear a price corresponding to their excellence.
We hope, for our part, that the Wilsons will, as soon as their place
can be supplied by a better berry, be banished from the market. It can
surely be no difficult thing to obtain a sort by crossing, which shall
bear transportation equally well, and shall not deceive the purchaser
with the appearance of ripeness."

The reader will perceive that Mr. Bryant has portrayed both the evil
and the remedy. The public justly complains of the strawberry of
commerce, but it has not followed the suggestion in the editorial and
demanded a better article, even though it must be furnished at a higher
price.

In spite, however, of all that is said and written annually against the
Wilson, it still maintains its supremacy as the market berry. Those who
reside near the city and can make, to some extent, special arrangements
with enlightened customers, find other varieties more profitable, even
though the yield from them is less and some are lost from lack of
keeping qualities. But those who send from a considerable distance, and
must take their chances in the general market, persist in raising the
"sour, crude berry," which is red before it is ripe, and hard enough to
stand the rough usage which it is almost certain to receive from the
hands through which it passes. I do not expect to see the day when the
Wilson, or some berry like it, is not the staple supply of the market;
although I hope and think it will be improved upon. But let it be
understood generally that they are "Wilsons,"--the cheap vin ordinaire
of strawberries. Cities will ever be flooded with varieties that
anybody can grow under almost any kind of culture; and no doubt it is
better that there should be an abundance of such fruit rather than none
at all. But a delicately organized man, like Mr. Bryant, cannot eat
them; and those who have enjoyed the genuine strawberries of the garden
will not. The number of people, however, with the digestion of an
ostrich, is enormous, and in multitudes of homes Wilsons, even when
half-ripe, musty, and stale, are devoured with unalloyed delight, under
the illusion that they are strawberries.

If genuine strawberries are wanted, the purchaser must demand them, pay
for them, and refuse "sour, crude berries." The remedy is solely in the
hands of the consumers.

If people would pay no more for Seckel than for Choke pears, Choke
pears would be the only ones in market, for they can be furnished with
the least cost and trouble. It is the lack of discrimination that
leaves our markets so bare of fine-flavored fruit. What the grower and
the grocer are seeking is a hard berry, which, if not sold speedily,
will "keep over." Let citizens clearly recognize the truth,--that there
are superb, delicious berries, like the Triomphe, Monarch, Charles
Downing, Boyden, and many others, and insist on being supplied with
them, just as they insist on good butter and good meats, and the
problem is solved. The demand will create the supply; the fruit
merchant will write to his country correspondents: "You must send
fine-flavored berries. My trade will not take any others, and I can
return you more money for half the quantity of fruit if it is good."
The most stolid of growers would soon take such a hint. Moreover, let
the patrons of high-priced hotels and restaurants indignantly order
away "sour, crude berries," as they would any other inferior viand, and
caterers would then cease to palm off Wilsons for first-class
strawberries. If these suggestions were carried out generally, the
character of the New York strawberry market would speedily be changed.
It is my impression that, within a few years, only those who are able
to raise large, fine-flavored fruit will secure very profitable
returns. Moreover, we are in a transition state in respect to
varieties, and there are scores of new kinds just coming before the
public, of which wonderful things are claimed. I shall test nearly a
hundred of these during the coming season, but am satisfied in advance
that nine-tenths of them will be discarded within a brief period.
Indeed, I doubt whether the ideal strawberry, that shall concentrate
every excellence within its one juicy sphere, ever will be discovered
or originated. We shall always have to make a choice, as we do in
friends, for their several good qualities and their power to please our
individual tastes.

There is, however, one perfect strawberry in existence,--the strawberry
of memory,--the little wildlings that we gathered perhaps, with those
over whom the wild strawberry is now growing. We will admit no fault in
it, and although we may no longer seek for this favorite fruit of our
childhood, with the finest specimens of the garden before us we sigh
for those berries that grew on some far-off hillside in years still
farther away.




CHAPTER VI

CHOICE OF SOIL AND LOCATION


The choice that Tobias Hobson imposed on his patrons when he compelled
them to take "the horse nearest to the stable-door" or none at all, is
one that, in principle, we often have to make in selecting our
strawberry-ground. We must use such as we have, or raise no berries.
And yet it has been said that "with no other fruit do soil and locality
make so great differences." While I am inclined to think that this is
truer of the raspberry, it is also thoroughly established that location
and the native qualities of the soil are among the first and chief
considerations in working out the problem of success with strawberries.

Especially should such forethought be given in selecting a soil suited
to the varieties we wish to raise. D. Thurber, editor "American
Agriculturist," states this truth emphatically. In August, 1875, he
wrote: "All talk about strawberries must be with reference to
particular soils. As an illustration of this, there were exhibited in
our office windows several successive lots of the Monarch of the West,
which were immense as to size and wonderful as to productiveness. This
same Monarch behaved in so unkingly a manner on our grounds (very light
and sandy in their nature) that he would have been deposed had we not
seen these berries, for it was quite inferior to either Charles
Downing, Seth Boyden, or Kentucky."

It is a generally admitted fact that the very best soil, and the one
adapted to the largest number of varieties, is a deep sandy loam,
moist, but not wet in its natural state. All the kinds with which I am
acquainted will do well on such land if it is properly deepened and
enriched. Therefore, we should select such ground if we have it on our
places, and those proposing to buy land with a view to this industry
would do well to secure from the start one of the best conditions of
success.

It is of vital importance that our strawberry fields be near good
shipping facilities, and that there be sufficient population in the
immediate vicinity to furnish pickers in abundance. It will be far
better to pay a much higher price for land--even inferior land--near a
village and a railroad depot, than to attempt to grow these perishable
fruits in regions too remote. A water communication with market is, of
course, preferable to any other. Having considered the question of
harvesting and shipping to market, then obtain the moist, loamy land
described above, if possible.

Such ground will make just as generous and satisfactory returns in the
home garden, and by developing its best capabilities the amateur can
attain results that will delight his heart and amaze his neighbors.

Shall the fact that we have no such soil, and cannot obtain it,
discourage us? Not at all! There are choice varieties that will grow in
the extremes of sand or clay. More effort will be required, but skill
and information can still secure success; and advantages of location,
climate, and nearness to good markets may more than counterbalance
natural deficiencies in the land. Besides, there is almost as solid a
satisfaction in transforming a bit of the wilderness into a garden as
in reforming and educating a crude or evil specimen of humanity.
Therefore if one finds himself in an unfavorable climate, and shut up
to the choice of land the reverse of a deep, moist, sandy loam, let him
pit his brain and muscle against all obstacles.

If the question were asked, "Is there anything that comes from the
garden better liked than a dish of strawberries?" in nine instances out
of ten the answer would be, "Nothing," even though sour Wilsons were
grown; and yet, too often the bed is in a neglected corner and half
shaded by trees, while strong-growing vegetables occupy the moist, open
spaces. It is hardly rational to put the favorite of the garden where,
at best, a partial failure is certain. Let it be well understood that
strawberries cannot be made to do well on ground exhausted by the roots
and covered by the shade of trees.

On many farms and even in some gardens there are several varieties of
soil. Within the area of an acre I have a sandy loam, a gravelly
hillside, low, black, alluvial land, and a very stiff, cold, wet clay.
Such diversity does not often occur within so limited a space, but on
multitudes of places corresponding differences exist. In such
instances, conditions suited to every variety can be found, and reading
and experience will teach the cultivator to locate his several kinds
just where they will give the best results. Moreover, by placing early
kinds on warm, sunny slopes, and giving late varieties moist, heavy
land, and cool, northern exposures, the season of this delicious fruit
can be prolonged greatly. The advantage of a long-continued supply for
the family is obvious, but it is often even more important to those
whose income is dependent on this industry. It frequently occurs that
the market is "glutted" with berries for a brief time in the height of
the season. If the crop matures in the main at such a time, the one
chance of the year passes, leaving but a small margin of profit;
whereas, if the grower had prolonged his season, by a careful selection
of soils as well as of varieties, he might sell a large portion of his
fruit when it was scarce and high.

Climate is also a very important consideration, and enters largely into
the problem of success from Maine to Southern California. Each region
has its advantages and disadvantages, and these should be estimated
before the purchaser takes the final steps which commit him to a
locality and methods of culture which may not prove to his taste. In
the far North, sheltered situations and light, warm land should be
chosen for the main crop; but in our latitude, and southward, it should
always be our aim to avoid that hardness and dryness of soil that cut
short the crops and hopes of so many cultivators.




CHAPTER VII

PREPARING AND ENRICHING THE SOIL


Having from choice or necessity decided on the ground on which our
future strawberries are to grow, the next step is to prepare the soil.
The first and most natural question will be: What is the chief need of
this plant? Many prepare their ground in a vague, indefinite way. Let
us prepare for strawberries.

Whether it grows North or South, East or West, the strawberry plant is
the same, and has certain constitutional traits and requirements, which
should be thoroughly fixed in our minds. Modifications of treatment
made necessary by various soils and climates are then not only easily
learned but also easily understood.

When asked, on one occasion, what was the chief requirement in
successful strawberry culture, Hon. Marshall P. Wilder replied
substantially in the following piquant manner:--

"In the first place, the strawberry's chief need is a great deal of
water.

"In the second place, it needs more water.

"In the third place, I think I would give it a great deal more water."

The more extended and full my experience becomes, the less exaggeration
I find in his words. The following strong confirmation of President
Wilder's opinion may be found in Thompson's "Gardener's Assistant," a
standard English work:--

"Ground that is apt to get very dry from the effects of only ten days'
or a fortnight's drought is not suitable, on account of the enormous
quantity of water that will be necessary; and if once the plants begin
to flag for want of moisture, the crop is all but lost. A soil that is
naturally somewhat moist, but not too wet, answers well; and where the
land has admitted of irrigation, we have seen heavy crops produced
every year."

If this be true in England, with its humid climate, how much more
emphatically should we state the importance of this requirement in our
land of long droughts and scorching suns.

Moisture, then, is the strawberry's first and chief need. Without it,
the best fertilizers become injurious rather than helpful. Therefore,
in the preparation of the soil and its subsequent cultivation, there
should be a constant effort to secure and maintain moisture, and the
failure to do this is the chief cause of meagre crops. And yet, very
probably, the first step absolutely necessary to accomplish this will
be a thorough system of underdrainage. I have spent hundreds of dollars
in such labors, and it was as truly my object to enable the ground to
endure drought as to escape undue wetness. Let it be understood that it
is _moist_ and not _wet_ land that the strawberry requires. If water
stands or stagnates upon or a little below the surface, the soil
becomes sour, heavy, lifeless; and if clay is present, it will bake
like pottery in dry weather, and suggest the Slough of Despond in wet.
Disappointment, failure, and miasma are the certain products of such
unregenerate regions, but, as is often the case with repressed and
troublesome people, the evil traits of such soil result from a lack of
balance, and a perversion of what is good.

The underdrain restores the proper equilibrium; the brush-hook and axe
cut away the rank unwholesome growth which thrives best in abnormal
conditions. Sun, air, and purifying frosts mellow and sweeten the damp,
heavy malarious ground, as the plowshare lifts it out of its low
estate. A swamp, or any approach to one, is like a New York
tenement-house district, and requires analogous treatment.

If, however, we have mellow upland with natural drainage, let us first
put that in order that we may have a remunerative crop as soon as
possible. In suggesting, therefore, the best methods of preparing and
enriching the ground, I will begin by considering soils that are
already in the most favorable conditions, and that require the least
labor and outlay. Man received his most essential agricultural
instruction in the opening chapter of Genesis, wherein he is commanded
to "subdue the earth." Even the mellow western prairie is at first a
wild, untamed thing, that must be subdued. This is often a simple
process, and in our gardens and the greater part of many farms has
already been practically accomplished. Where the deep, moist loam, just
described, exists, the fortunate owner has only to turn it up to the
sun and give it a year of ordinary cultivation, taking from it, in the
process, some profitable hoed crop that will effectually kill the
grass, and his land is ready for strawberries. If his ground is in
condition to give a good crop of corn, it will also give a fair crop of
berries. If the garden is so far "subdued" as to yield kitchen
vegetables, the strawberry may be planted at once, with the prospect of
excellent returns, unless proper culture is neglected.

Should the reader be content with mediocrity, there is scarcely
anything to be said where the conditions are so favorable. But suppose
one is not content with mediocrity. Then this highly favored soil is
but the vantage-ground from which skill enters on a course of thorough
preparation and high culture. A man may plow, harrow, and set with
strawberries the land that was planted the previous year in corn, and
probably secure a remunerative return, with little more trouble or cost
than was expended on the corn. Or, he may select half the area that was
in corn, plow it deeply in October, and if he detects traces of the
white grub, cross-plow it again just as the ground is beginning to
freeze. Early in the spring he can cover the surface with some
fertilizer--there is nothing better than a rotted compost of muck and
barn-yard manure--at the proportion of forty or fifty tons to the acre.
Plow and cross-plow again, and in each instance let the first team be
followed by a subsoil or lifting plow, which stirs and loosens the
substratum without bringing it to the surface. The half of the field
prepared in such a thorough manner will probably yield three times the
amount of fruit that could be gathered from the whole area under
ordinary treatment; and if the right varieties are grown, and a good
market is within reach, the money received will be in a higher ratio.

The principle of generous and thorough preparation may be carried still
further in the garden, and its soil, already rich and mellow, may be
covered to the depth of several inches with well-rotted compost or any
form of barn-yard manure that is not too coarse and full of heat, and
this may be incorporated with the earth by trenching to the depth of
two feet. Of this be certain, the strawberry roots will go as deeply as
the soil is prepared and enriched for them, and the result in abundant
and enormous fruit will be commensurate. English gardeners advise
trenching even to the depth of three feet, where the ground permits it.

Few soils can be found so deep and rich by nature that they cannot be
improved by art; and the question for each to decide is, how far the
returns will compensate for extra preparation. Very often land for
strawberries receives but little more preparation than for wheat, and
such methods must pay or they would not be continued. Many who follow
these methods declare that they are the most profitable in the long
run. I doubt it.

If our market is one in which strawberries are sold simply as such,
without much regard to flavor or size, there is not the same inducement
to produce fine fruit. But even when quantity is the chief object,
deeply prepared and enriched land retains that essential moisture of
which we have spoken, and enables the plant not only to form, but also
to develop and mature, a great deal of fruit. In the majority of
markets, however, each year, size and beauty count for more, and these
qualities can be secured, even from a favorable soil, only after
thorough preparation and enriching. I find that every writer of
experience on this subject, both American and European, insists
vigorously on the value of such careful pulverization and deepening of
the soil.

Having thus considered the most favorable land in the best condition
possible, under ordinary cultivation, I shall now treat of that less
suitable, until we finally reach a soil too sterile and hopelessly bad
to repay cultivation.

I will speak first of this same deep, moist loam, in its unsubdued
condition; that is, in stiff sod, trees, or brush-wood. Of course, the
latter must be removed, and, as a rule, the crops on new land--which
has been undisturbed by the plow for a number of years and, perhaps,
never robbed of its original fertility--will amply repay for the extra
labor of clearing. Especially will this be the case if the brush and
rubbish are burned evenly over the surface. The finest of wild
strawberries are found where trees have been felled and the brush
burned; and the successful fruit grower is the one who makes the best
use of such hints from nature.

The field would look better and the cultivation be easier if all the
stumps could be removed before planting, but this might involve too
great preliminary expense, and I always counsel against debt except in
the direst necessity. A little brush burned on each stump will
effectually check new growth, and, in two or three years, these
unsightly objects will be so rotten that they can be pried out, and
easily turned into ashes, one of the best of fertilizers. In the
meantime, the native strength of the land will cause a growth which
will compensate for the partial lack of deep and thorough cultivation
which the stumps and roots prevent. Those who have travelled West and
South have seen fine crops of corn growing among the half-burned
stumps, and strawberries will do as well.

But where trees or brush have grown very thickly, the roots and stumps
must be eradicated. The thick growth on the sandy land of Florida is
grubbed out at the cost of about $30 per acre, and I know of a
gentleman who pays at the rate of $25 per acre in the vicinity of
Norfolk, Va. I doubt whether it can be done for less elsewhere.

In some regions they employ a stump extractor, a rude but strong
machine, worked by blocks and pulleys, with oxen as motor power. From
the "Farmer's Advocate" of London, Ont., I learn that an expert with
one of these machines, aided by five men and two yoke of oxen, was in
the habit of clearing fifty acres annually.

I have cleaned hedge-rows and stony spots on my place in the following
thorough manner: A man commences with pick and shovel on one side of
the land and turns it steadily and completely over by hand to the depth
of fourteen to eighteen inches, throwing on the surface behind him all
the roots, stumps and stones, and stopping occasionally to blast when
the rocks are too large to be pried out. This, of course, is expensive,
and cannot be largely indulged in; but, when accomplished, the work is
done for all time, and I have obtained at once by this method some
splendid soil, in which the plow sinks to the beam. A drought must be
severe, indeed, that can injure such land.

There is a great difference in men in the performance of this work. I
have one who, within a reasonable time, would trench a farm. Indeed, in
his power to obey the primal command to "subdue the earth," my man,
Abraham, is a hero--although, I imagine, he scarcely knows what the
word means and would as soon think of himself as a hippopotamus. His
fortunes would often seem as dark as himself to those who "take thought
for the morrow;" and that is saying much, for Abraham is "colored" as
far as man can be.

I doubt whether his foresight often reaches further than bedtime, and
to that hour he comes with an honest right to rest. He is a family man,
and has six or seven children, under eight years of age, whom he
shelters in a wretched little house that appears tired of standing up.
But to and from this abode Abraham passes daily, with a face as serene
as a May morning. In that weary old hovel I am satisfied that he and
his swarming little brood have found what no architect can build--a
home. Thither he carries his diurnal dollar, when he can get it, and on
it they all manage to live and grow fat. He loses time occasionally, it
is true, through illness, but no such trifling misfortune can induce
him, seemingly, to take a long, anxious look into the future. Only
once--it was last winter--have I seen him dismayed by the frowning
fates. The doctor thought his wife would die, and they had nothing to
eat in the house. When Abraham appeared before me at that time, "his
countenance was fallen," as the quaint, strong language of Scripture
expresses it. He made no complaints, however, and indulged in no
Byronic allusions to destiny. Indeed, he said very little, but merely
drooped and cowered, as if the wolf at the door and the shadow of death
within it were rather more than he could face at one and the same time.
It soon became evident, however, that his wife would "pull through," as
he said, and then the wolf didn't trouble him a mite. He installed
himself as cook, nurse, and house man-of-all-work, finding also
abundant leisure to smoke his pipe with infinite content. One morning
he was seen baking buckwheat cakes for the children; each one in turn
received an allowance on a tin plate, and squatted here and there on
the floor to devour it; and, from the master of ceremonies down, there
was not an indication that all was not just as it should be. A few days
later I met him coming back to his work with his pipe in the corner of
his mouth, and the old confident twinkle in his eye as he said,
"Mornin', Bossie." Now, Abraham carries his peculiar characteristics
into grubbing. If I should set him at a hundred-acre field full of
stumps and stones, and tell him to clear it to the depth of two feet,
he would begin without any apparent misgiving, and with no more thought
for the magnitude of his task than he has for the tangled and stubborn
mysteries of life in general, or the dubious question of "what shall be
on the morrow" in his own experience. He would see only the little
strip that he proposed to clear up that day, and would go to work in a
way all his own.

Although not talkative to other people, he is very social with himself,
and, in the early days of our acquaintance, I was constantly misled
into the belief that somebody was with him, and that he was a man of
words rather than work. As soon, however, as I reached a point from
which I could see him, there he would be, alone, bending to his task
with the steady persistence that makes his labor so effective; but, at
the same time, until he saw me he would continue discussing with equal
vigor whatever subject might be uppermost in his mind. I suppose he
scarcely ever takes out a stone or root without apostrophizing,
adjuring, and berating it in tones and vernacular so queer that one
might imagine he hoped to remove the refractory object by magic rather
than by muscle. When the sun is setting, however, and Abraham has
complacently advised himself, "Better quit, for de day's done gone, and
de ole woman is arter me, afeared I've kivered myself up a-grubbin',"
one thing is always evident--a great many stones and roots are
"unkivered," and Abraham has earned anew his right to the title of
champion grubber.

But, as most men handle the pick and shovel, the fruit grower must be
chary in his attempts to subdue the earth with those old-time
implements. It is too much like making war with the ancient Roman short
sword in an age of rifled guns. I agree with that practical
horticulturist, Peter Henderson, that there are no implements equal to
the plow and subsoiler, and, in our broad and half-occupied country, we
should be rather shy of land where these cannot be used.

The cultivator whose deep moist loam is covered by sod only, instead of
rocks, brush, and trees, may feel like congratulating himself on the
easy task before him; and, indeed, where the sod is light,
strawberries, and especially the larger small fruits, are often planted
on it at once with fair success. I do not recommend the practice; for,
unless the subsequent culture is very thorough and frequent, the grass
roots will continue to grow and may become so intertwined with those of
the strawberry that they cannot be separated. Corn is probably the best
hoed crop to precede the strawberry. Potatoes too closely resemble this
fruit in their demand for potash, and exhaust the soil of one of the
most needed elements. A dressing of wood ashes, however, will make good
the loss. Buckwheat is one of the most effective means of subduing and
cleaning land, and two crops can be plowed under in a single summer.
Last spring I had some very stiff marsh sod turned over and sown with
buckwheat, which, in our hurry, was not plowed under until considerable
of the seed ripened and fell. A second crop from this came up at once,
and was plowed under when coming into blossom, as the first should have
been. The straw, in its succulent state, decayed in a few days, and by
autumn my rough marsh sod was light, rich, and mellow as a garden,
ready for anything.

If it should happen that the land designed for strawberries was in
clover, it would make an admirable fertilizer if turned under while
still green, and I think its use for this purpose would pay better than
cutting it for hay, even though there is no better. Indeed, were I
about to put any sod land, that was not very stiff and unsubdued, into
small fruits, I would wait till whatever herbage covered the ground was
just coming into flower, and then turn it under. The earlier growth
that precedes the formation of seed does not tax the soil much, but
draws its substance largely from the atmosphere, and when returned to
the earth while full of juices, is valuable. In our latitude this can
usually be done by the middle of June, and if on this sod buckwheat is
sown at once, it will hasten the decay, loosen and lighten the soil in
its growth, and in a few weeks be ready itself to increase the
fertility of the field by being plowed under. In regions where farmyard
manure and other fertilizers are scarce and high, this plowing under of
green crops is one of the most effective ways both of enriching and
preparing the land; and if the reader has no severer labors to perform
than this, he may well congratulate himself.

But let him not be premature in his self-felicitation, for he may find
in his sod ground, especially if it be old meadow land, an obstacle
worse than stumps and stones--the Lachnosterna fusca.

This portentous name may well inspire dread, for the thing itself can
realize one's worst fears. The deep, moist loam which we are
considering is the favorite haunt of this hateful little monster, and
he who does not find it lying in wait when turning up land that has
been long in sod, may deem himself lucky. The reader need not draw a
sigh of relief when I tell him that I mean merely the "white grub," the
larva of the May-beetle or June-bug, that so disturbs our slumbers in
early summer by its sonorous hum and aimless bumping against the wall.
This white grub, which the farmers often call the "potato worm," is, in
this region, the strawberry's most formidable foe, and, by devouring
the roots, will often destroy acres of plants. If the plow turns up
these ugly customers in large numbers, the only recourse is to
cultivate the land with some other crop until they turn into beetles
and fly away. This enemy will receive fuller attention in a later
chapter.

It is said that this pest rarely lays its eggs in plowed land,
preferring sod ground, where its larvae will be protected from the
birds, and will find plenty of grass roots on which to feed. Nature
sees to it that white grubs are taken care of, but our Monarch
strawberries need our best skill and help in their unequal fight; and
if "Lachnos" and tribe should turn out in force, Alexander himself
would be vanquished.




CHAPTER VIII.

PREPARATION OF SOIL BY DRAINAGE


Excessive moisture will often prevent the immediate cultivation of our
ideal strawberry land. Its absence is fatal, its excess equally so. Let
me suggest some of the evil effects. Every one is aware that
climate--that is the average temperature of the atmosphere throughout
the year--has a most important influence on vegetation. But a great
many, I imagine, do not realize that there is an underground climate
also, and that it is scarcely less important that this should be
adapted to the roots than that the air should be tempered to the
foliage. Water-logged land is cold. The sun can bake, but not warm it
to any extent. Careful English experiments have proved that
well-drained land is from 10 to 20 degrees warmer than wet soils; and
Mr. Parkes has shown, in his "Essay on the Philosophy of Drainage,"
that in "draining the 'Red Moss' the thermometer in the drained land
rose in June to 66 degrees at seven inches below the surface, while in
the neighboring water-logged land it would never rise above 47
degrees--an enormous gain."

In his prize essay on drainage, Dr. Madden confirms the above, and
explains further, as follows: "An excess of water injures the soil by
diminishing its temperature in summer and increasing it in winter--a
transformation of nature most hurtful to perennials, because the vigor
of a plant in spring depends greatly on the lowness of temperature to
which it has been subjected during the winter (within certain limits,
of course), as the difference of temperature between winter and spring
is the exciting cause of the ascent of the sap." In other words, too
much water in the soil may cause no marked difference between the
underground climate of winter and spring.

Dr. Madden shows, moreover, that excess of water keeps out the air
essential not only in promoting chemical changes in the soil itself and
required by the plants, but also the air which is directly needed by
the roots. Sir H. Davy and others have proved that oxygen and carbonic
acid are absorbed by the roots as well as by the foliage, and these
gases can be brought to them by the air only.

Again, drainage alters the currents which occur in wet soil. In
undrained land, evaporation is constantly bringing up to the roots the
sour, exhausted water of the subsoil, which is an injury rather than a
benefit. On the other hand, the rain just fallen passes freely through
a drained soil, carrying directly to the roots fresh air and
stimulating gases.

Wet land also produces conditions which disable the foliage of plants
from absorbing carbonic acid, thus greatly decreasing its atmospheric
supply of food. Other reasons might be given, but the reader who is not
satisfied had better set out an acre of strawberries on water-logged
land. His empty pocket will out-argue all the books.

The construction of drains may be essential, for three causes: 1st.
Land that is dry enough naturally may lie so as to collect and hold
surface water, which, accumulating with every rain and snow storm, at
last renders the soil sour and unproductive. 2nd. Comparatively level
land, and even steep hillsides, may be so full of springs as to render
drains at short intervals necessary. 3rd. Streams, flowing perhaps from
distant sources, may find their natural channel across our grounds. If
these channels are obstructed or inadequate, we find our land falling
into the ways of an old soaker.

It should here be stated, however, that if we could cause streams to
overflow our land in a shallow, sluggish current, so that a sediment
would be left on the surface after a speedy subsidence, the result
would be in miniature like the overflow of the Nile in Egypt, most
beneficial, that is, if means for thorough subsequent drainage was
provided.

If there is an abundance of stone on one's place suitable for the
construction of drains, it can often be used to advantage, as I shall
show; but for all ordinary purposes of drainage, round tile with
collars are now recommended by the best authorities. It is said that
they are cheaper than stone, even where the latter is right at hand;
and the claim is reasonable, since, instead of the wide ditch required
by stone, a narrow cut will suffice for tile; thus a great saving is at
once effected in the cost of digging. Tile also can be laid rapidly,
and are not liable to become obstructed if properly protected at points
of discharge by gratings, so that vermin cannot enter. They should not
be laid near willow, elm, and other trees of like character, or else
the fibrous roots will penetrate and fill the channel. If one has a
large problem of drainage to solve, he should carefully read a work
like Geo. E. Waring's "Drainage for Profit and for Health;" and if the
slope or fall of some fields is very slight, say scarcely one foot in a
hundred, the services of an engineer should be employed and accurate
grades obtained. By a well-planned system, the cost of draining a place
can be greatly reduced, and the water made very useful.

On my place at Cornwall I found three acres of wet land, each in turn
illustrating one of the causes which make drainage necessary. I used
stone, because, in some instances, no other material would have
answered, in others partly because I was a novice in the science of
drainage, and partly because I had the stones on my place, and did not
know what else to do with them. I certainly could not cart them on my
neighbors' ground without having a surplus of hot as well as cold
water, so I concluded to bury them in the old-fashioned box-drains.
Indeed, I found rather peculiar and difficult problems of drainage, and
the history of their solution may contain useful hints to the reader.

In front of my house there is a low, level plot of land, containing
about three acres. Upon this the surface water ran from all sides, and
there was no outlet. The soil was, in consequence, sour, and in certain
spots only a wiry marsh grass would grow. And yet it required, but a
glance to see that a drain, which could carry off this surface water
immediately, would render it the best land on the place. I tried, in
vain, the experiment of digging a deep, wide ditch across the entire
tract, in hopes of finding a porous subsoil. Then I excavated great,
deep holes, but came to a blue clay that held water like rubber. The
porous subsoil, in which I knew the region abounded, and which makes
Cornwall exceptionally free from all miasmatic troubles, eluded our
spades like hidden treasures. I eventually found that I must obtain
permission of a neighbor to carry a drain across another farm to the
mountain stream that empties into the Hudson at Cornwall Landing. The
covered drain through the adjoining place was deep and expensive, but
the ditch across my land (marked A on the map) is a small one, walled
with stone on either side. It answers my purpose, however, giving me as
good strawberry land as I could wish. On both sides of this open ditch,
and at right angles with it, I had the ground plowed into beds 130 feet
long by 21 wide. The shallow depressions between these beds slope
gently toward the ditch, and thus, after every storm, the surface
water, which formerly often, covered the entire area, is at once
carried away. I think my simple, shallow, open drain is better than
tile in this instance.

[Illustration: Map showing experiments in the drainage of a strawberry
farm]

As may be seen from the map, my farm is peculiar in outline, and
resembles an extended city lot, being 2,550 feet long, and only 410
wide.

The house, as shown by the engraving, stands on quite an elevation, in
the rear of which the land descends into another swale or basin. The
drainage of this presented a still more difficult problem. Not only did
the surface water run into it, but in moist seasons the ground was full
of springs. The serious feature of the case was that there seemed to be
no available outlet in any direction. Unlike the mellow, sandy loam in
front of the house, the swale in the rear was of the stiffest kind of
clay--just the soil to retain and be spoiled by water. During the first
year of our residence here this region was sometimes a pond, sometimes
a quagmire, while again, under the summer sun, it baked into
earthenware. It was a doubtful question whether this stubborn acre
could be subdued, and yet its heavy clay gave me just the diversity of
soil I needed. Throughout the high gravelly knoll on which the house
stands, the natural drainage is perfect, and a sagacious neighbor
suggested that if I cut a ditch across the clayey swale into the gravel
of the knoll, the water would find a natural outlet and disappear.

The ditch was dug eight feet wide and five feet deep, for I decided to
utilize the surface of the drain as a road-bed. Passing out of the clay
and hard-pan, we came into the gravel, and it seemed porous enough to
carry off a fair-sized stream. I concluded that my difficult problem
had found a cheap and easy solution, and to make assurance doubly sure,
I directed the men to dig a deep pit and fill it with stones. When they
had gone about nine feet below the surface, I happened to be standing
on the brink of the excavation, watching the work. A laborer struck his
pick into the gravel, when a stream gushed out which in its sudden
abundance suggested that which flowed in the wilderness at the stroke
of Moss's rod. The problem was now complicated anew. So far from
finding an outlet, I had dug a well which the men could scarcely bail
out fast enough to permit of its being stoned up.

My neighbors remarked that my wide ditch reminded them of the Erie
canal, and my wife was in terror lest the children should be drowned in
it. Now something had to be done, and I called in the services of Mr.
Caldwell, city surveyor of Newburgh, and to his map I refer the reader
for a clearer understanding of my tasks.

Between the upper and lower swales, the ridge on which the house stands
slopes to its greatest depression along its western boundary, and I was
shown that if I would cut deep enough, the open drain in the lower
swale could receive and carry off the water from the upper basin. This
appeared Tobe the only resource, but with my limited means it was like
a ship-canal across the Isthmus of Panama. The old device of emptying
my drains into a hole that practically had no bottom, suggested itself
to me. It would be so much easier and cheaper that I resolved once more
to try it, though with hopes naturally dampened by my last moist
experience. I directed that the hole (marked B on the map) should be
oblong, and in the direct line of the ditch, so that if it failed of
its purpose it could become a part of the drain. Down we went into as
perfect sand and gravel as I ever saw, and the deeper we dug the dryer
it became. This time, in wounding old "Mother Earth," we did not cut a
vein, and there seemed a fair prospect of our creating a new one, for
into this receptacle I decided to turn my largest drain and all the
water that the stubborn acre persisted in keeping.

I therefore had a "box-drain" constructed along the western boundary of
the place (marked C) until it reached the lowest spot in the upper
swale. This drain was simply and rapidly constructed, in the following
manner: a ditch was first dug sufficiently deep and wide, and with, a
fall that carried off the water rapidly. In the bottom of this ditch
the men built two roughly faced walls, one foot high and eight inches
apart. Comparatively long, flat stones, that would reach from wall to
wall, were easily found, and thus we had a covered water-course, eight
by twelve inches, forming the common box-drain that will usually last a
lifetime.

The openings over the channel were carefully "chinked" in with small
stones and all covered with inverted sods, shavings, leaves, or
anything that prevented the loose soil from sifting or washing down
into the water-course.

At the upper end of the box-drain just described, a second and smaller
receptacle was dug (marked D), and from this was constructed another
box-drain (E), six inches square, across the low ground to the end of
the canal in which we had found the well (F). This would not only drain
a portion of the land but would also empty the big ditch (G), and
prevent the water of the well from rising above a certain point. This
kind of stone-work can be done rapidly; two men in two short winter
days built thirteen rods with a water-course six inches in the clear.

To the upper and further end of the canal (G), I constructed another
and cheaper style of drain. In the bottom of this ditch (H), two stones
were placed on their ends or edges and leaned together so as to form a
kind of arch, and then other stones were thrown over and around them
until they reached a point eighteen inches from the surface. Over these
stones, as over the box-drains also, was placed a covering of any
coarse litter to keep the earth from washing down; and then the
construction of one or two short side-drains, the refilling the ditches
and levelling the ground completed my task.

It will be remembered that this entire system of drainage ended in the
excavation (B) already described. The question was now whether such a
theory of drainage would "hold water." If it would, the hole I had dug
must not, and I waited to see. It promised well. Quite a steady stream
poured into it and disappeared. By and by there came a heavy March
storm. When I went out in the morning, everything was afloat. The big
canal and the well at its lower end were full to overflowing. The
stubborn acre was a quagmire, and alas! the excavation which I had
hoped would save so much trouble and expense was also full. I plodded
back under my umbrella with a brow as lowering as the sky. There seemed
nothing for it but to cut a "Dutch gap" that would make a like chasm in
my bank account. By noon it cleared off, and I went down to take a
melancholy survey of the huge amount of work that now seemed necessary,
when, to my great joy, the oblong cut, in which so many hopes had
seemingly been swamped, was entirely empty. From the box-drain a large
stream poured into it and went down--to China, for all that I knew. I
went in haste to the big canal and found it empty, and the well lowered
to the mouth of the drain. The stubborn acre was now under my thumb,
and I have kept it there ever since. During the past summer, I had upon
its wettest and stiffest portion two beds of Jucunda strawberries that
yielded at the rate of one hundred and ninety bushels to the acre. The
Jucunda strawberry is especially adapted to heavy land requiring
drainage, and I think an enterprising man in the vicinity of New York
might so unite them as to make a fortune. The hole was filled with
stones and now forms a part of my garden, and the canal answers for a
road-bed as at first intended. In the fortuitous well I have placed a
force-pump, around which are grown and watered my potted plants. The
theory of carrying drains into gravel does hold water, and sometimes
holes can be dug at a slight expense, that practically have no bottom.
I have no doubt that in this instance tile would have been better and
cheaper than the small stone drains that I have described.

In the rear of my place there was a third drainage problem very
different from either of the other two. My farm runs back to the rise
of the mountain, whose edge it skirts for some distance. It thus
receives at times much surface water. At the foot of the
mountain-slope, there are about three acres of low alluvial soil, that
was formerly covered with a coarse, useless herbage of the swamp.
Between the meadow and the slope of the mountain, "the town" built a
"boulevard" (marked II on the map), practically "cribbing" an acre or
two of land. Ahab, who needed Naboth's vineyard for public purposes, is
the spiritual father of all "town boards."

At the extreme end of the farm, and just beyond the alluvial ground,
was the channel of a brook (marked J). Its stony bed, through which
trickled a rill, had a very innocent aspect on the October day when we
looked the farm over and decided upon its purchase. The rill ran a
little way on my grounds, then crept under the fence and skirted my
western boundary for several hundred yards. On reaching a rise of land,
it re-entered my place and ran obliquely across it. It thus enclosed
three sides of the low, bushy meadow I have named. Its lower channel
across the place had been stoned up with the evident purpose of keeping
it within limits; but the three or four feet of space between the walls
had become obstructed by roots, bushes, vines and debris in general.
With the exception of the stony bed where it entered the farm, most of
its course was obscured by overhanging bushes and the sere, rank
herbage of autumn.

In a vague way I felt that eventually something would have to be done
to direct this little child of the mountain into proper ways, and to
subdue the spirit of the wilderness that it diffused on every side. I
had its lower channel across the place (K K) cleared out, thinking that
this might answer for the present; and the gurgle of the little
streamlet along the bottom of the ditch seemed a low laugh at the idea
of its ever filling the three square feet of space above it. Deceitful
little brook! Its innocent babble contained no suggestion of its hoarse
roar on a March day, the following spring, as it tore its way along,
scooping the stones and gravel from its upper bed and scattering them
far and wide over the alluvial meadow. Instead of a tiny rill, I found
that I would have to cope at times with a mountain torrent. At first,
the task was too heavy, and the fitful-tempered brook, and the
swamp-like region it encompassed, were left for years to their old wild
instincts. At last the increasing demands of my business made it
necessary to have more arable land, and I saw that, if I could keep it
from being overwhelmed with water and gravel, the alluvial meadow was
just the place for strawberries.

I commenced at the lowest point where it finally leaves my grounds, and
dug a canal (K K), twelve feet wide by four or five deep, across my
place, stoning up its walls on either side. An immense amount of earth
and gravel was thrown on the lower side so as to form a high, strong
embankment in addition to the channel. Then, where it entered the farm
above the meadow, I had a wide, deep ditch excavated, throwing all the
debris between it and the land I wished to shield. Throughout the low
meadow, two covered box-drains (L and M) were constructed so that the
plow could pass over them. On the side of the meadow next to the
boulevard and mountain, I had an open drain (N N) dug and filled with
stones even with the ground. It was designed to catch and carry off the
surface water, merely, from the long extent of mountain-slope that it
skirted. The system of ditches to protect and drain the partial swamp,
and also to manage the deceitful brook, was now finished, and I waited
for the results. During much of the summer there was not a drop of
water in the wide canal, save where a living spring trickled into it.
The ordinary fall rains could scarcely more than cover the broad,
pebbly bottom, and the unsophisticated laughed and said that I reminded
them of a general who trained a forty-pound gun on a belligerent mouse.
I remembered what I had seen, and bided my time.

But I did not have to wait till March. One November day it began to
rain, and it kept on. All the following night there was a steady rush
and roar of falling water. It was no ordinary pattering, but a gusty
outpouring from the "windows of heaven." The two swales in the front
and rear of the house became great muddy ponds, tawny as the "yellow
Tiber," and through intervals of the storm came the sullen roar of the
little brook that had been purring like a kitten all summer. Toward
night, Mature grew breathless and exhausted; there were sobbing gusts
of wind and sudden gushes of rain, that grew less and less frequent. It
was evident she would become quiet in the night and quite serene after
her long, tempestuous mood.

As the sun was setting I ventured out with much misgiving. The
deepening roar as I went down the lane increased my fears, but I was
fairly appalled by the wild torrent that cut off all approach to the
bridge. The water had not only filled the wide canal, but also, at a
point a little above the bridge, had broken over and washed away the
high embankment. I skirted along the tide until I reached the part of
the bank that still remained intact, and there beneath my feet rushed a
flood that would have instantly swept away horse and rider. Indeed,
quite a large tree had been torn up by its roots, and carried down
until it caught in the bridge, which would also have gone had not the
embankment above given way.

The lower part of the meadow was also under water. It had been plowed,
and therefore would wash readily. Would any soil be left? A few moments
of calm reflection, however, removed my fears. The treacherous brook
had not beguiled me during the summer into inadequate provision for
this unprecedented outbreak. I saw that my deep, wide cut had kept the
flood wholly from the upper part of the meadow, which contained a very
valuable bed of high-priced strawberry plants, and that the slowly
moving tide which covered the lower part was little more than backwater
and overflow. The wide ditches were carrying off swiftly and harmlessly
the great volume that, had not such channels been provided, would have
made my rich alluvial meadow little else than a stony, gravelly waste.
And the embankment had given way at a point too low down to permit much
damage.

The two swales in the front and rear of the house appeared like
mill-ponds. In the former instance, the water had backed up from the
mountain stream into which my drain emptied, and, therefore, it could
not pass off; and in the latter instance I could scarcely expect my
little underground channel to dispose at once of the torrents that for
forty hours had poured from the skies. I must give it at least a night
in which to catch up. And a busy night it put in, for by morning it had
conveyed to depths unknown the wide, discolored pond, that otherwise
would have smothered the plants it covered. As soon, also, as the
mountain stream fell below the mouth of the lower drain, it emptied at
once the water resting on the lower swale. Throughout the day came
successive tales of havoc and disaster, of dams scooped out, bridges
swept away, roads washed into stony gulches, and fields and gardens
overwhelmed with debris. The Idlewild brook, that the poet Willis made
so famous, seemed almost demoniac in its power and fury. Not content
with washing away dams, roads, and bridges, it swept a heavy wall
across a field as if the stones were pebbles.

My three diverse systems of drainage had thus practically stood the
severest test, perhaps, that will ever be put upon them, and my grounds
had not been damaged to any extent worth naming. The cost had been
considerable, but the injury caused by that one storm would have
amounted to a larger sum had there been no other channels for the water
than those provided by nature.

My readers will find, in many instances, that they have land which must
be or may be drained. If it can be done sufficiently, the very ideal
strawberry soil may be secured--moist and deep, but not wet.




CHAPTER IX

THE PREPARATION OF SOILS COMPARATIVELY UNFAVORABLE--CLAY, SAND, ETC.


We have now reached a point at which we must consider land which in its
essential character is unfavorable to strawberries, and yet which may
be the best to be had. The difficulties here are not merely accidental
or remediable, such as lack of depth or fertility, the presence of
stones or stumps, undue wetness of soil, etc. Any or all of these
obstacles may be found, but in addition there are evils inseparable
from the soil, and which cannot be wholly eradicated. The best we can
hope in such a case is to make up by art what is lacking in nature.

This divergence from the deep, moist sandy loam, the ideal strawberry
land, is usually toward a stiff, cold, stubborn clay, or toward a
droughty, leachy sand that retains neither fertility nor moisture. Of
course, these opposite soils require in most respects different
treatment.

We will consider first the less objectionable, that is, the heavy clay.
To call clay more favorable for strawberries than sandy land may seem
like heresy to many, for it is a popular impression that light soils
are the best. Experience and observation have, however, convinced me of
the contrary. With the clay you have a stable foundation. Your progress
may be slow, but it can be made sure. The character of a sandy
foundation was taught centuries ago. Moreover, all the fine
foreign-blooded varieties, as well as our best native ones, grow far
better on heavy land, and a soil largely mixed with clay gives a wider
range in the choice of varieties.

If I had my choice between a farm of cold, stiff clay or light, leachy
land, I would unhesitatingly take the former, and I would overcome its
native unfitness by the following methods: If at all inclined to be
wet, as would be natural from its tenacious texture, I should first
underdrain it thoroughly with tile. Then, if I found a fair amount of
vegetable matter, I would give it a dressing of air-slaked lime, and
plow it deeply late in the fall, leaving it unharrowed so as to expose
as much of the soil as possible to the action of frost. Early in the
spring, as soon as the ground was dry enough to work and all danger of
frost was over, I would harrow in buckwheat and plow it under as it
came into blossom; then sow a second crop and plow that under also. It
is the characteristic of buckwheat to lighten and clean land, and the
reader perceives that it should be our constant aim to impart lightness
and life to the heavy soil. Lime, in addition to its fertilizing
effects, acts chemically on the ground, producing the desired effect.
It may be objected that lime is not good for strawberries. That is true
if crude lime is applied directly to the plants, as we would ashes or
bone-dust; but when it is mixed with the soil for months, it is so
neutralized as to be helpful, and in the meantime its action on the
soil itself is of great value. It must be used for strawberries,
however, in more limited quantities than for many other crops, or else
more time must be given for it to become incorporated with the soil.

The coarse green straw of the buckwheat is useful by its mechanical
division of the heavy land, while at the same time its decomposition
fills the soil with ammonia and other gases vitally necessary to the
plant. A clay soil retains these gases with little waste. It is thus
capable of being enriched to almost any extent, and can be made a
storehouse of wealth.

Where it can be procured, there is no better fertilizer for clay land
than the product of the horse-stable, which, as a rule, can be plowed
under in its raw, unfermented state, its heat and action in decay
producing the best results. Of course, judgment and moderation must be
employed. The roots of a young, growing plant cannot feed in a mass of
fermenting manure, no matter what the soil may be. The point I wish to
make is that cold, heavy land is greatly benefited by having these
heating, gas-producing processes take place beneath its surface. After
they are over, the tall, rank foliage and enormous fruit of the Jucunda
strawberry (a variety that can scarcely grow at all in sand) will show
the capabilities of clay.

Heavy land is the favorite home of the grasses, and is usually covered
with a thick, tenacious sod. This, of course, must be thoroughly
subdued before strawberries are planted, or else you will have a
hay-field in spite of all you can do. The decay of this mass of roots,
however, furnishes just the food required, and a crop of buckwheat
greatly hastens decomposition, and adds its own bulk and fertility when
plowed under. I think it will scarcely ever pay to plant strawberries
directly on the sod of heavy land.

While buckwheat is a good green crop to plow under, if the cultivator
can wait for the more slowly maturing red-top clover, he will find it
_far better_, both to enrich and to lighten up his heavy soil; for it
is justly regarded as the best means of imparting the mellowness and
friability in which the roots of strawberries as well as all other
plants luxuriate.

There are, no doubt, soils fit for bricks and piping only, but in most
instances, by a judicious use of the means suggested, they can be made
to produce heavy and long-continued crops of the largest fruit.

These same principles apply to the small garden-plot as well as to the
acre. Instead of carting off weeds, old pea vines, etc., dig them under
evenly over the entire space, when possible. Enrich with warm, light
fertilizers, and if a good heavy coat of hot strawy manure is trenched
in the heaviest, stickiest clay, in October or November, strawberries
or anything else can be planted the following spring. The gardener, who
thus expends a little thought and farsighted labor will at last secure
results that will surpass his most sanguine hopes, and that, too, from
land that would otherwise be as hard as Pharaoh's heart.

Before passing from this soil to that of an opposite character, let me
add a few words of caution. Clay land should never be stirred when
either very wet or very dry, or else a lumpy condition results that
injures it for years. It should be plowed or dug only when it crumbles.
When the soil is sticky, or turns up in great hard lumps, let it alone.
The more haste the worst speed.

Again, the practice of fall plowing, so very beneficial in latitudes
where frosts are severe and long continued, is just the reverse in the
far South. There our snow is rain, and the upturned furrows are washed
down into a smooth, sticky mass by the winter storms. On steep
hillsides, much of the soil would ooze away with every rain, or slide
downhill en masse. In the South, therefore, unless a clay soil is to be
planted at once, it must not be disturbed in the fall, and it is well
if it can be protected by stubble or litter, which shields it from the
direct contact of the rain and from the sun's rays. But cow-peas, or
any other rank-growing green crop adapted to the locality, is as useful
to Southern clay as to Northern, and Southern fields might be enriched
rapidly, since their long season permits of plowing under several
growths.

Lime and potash in their various forms, in connection with green crops,
would give permanent fertility to every heavy acre of Southern land. In
my judgment, however, barnyard manure is not surpassed in value by any
other in any latitude. If one owned clay land from which he could not
secure good crops after the preparation that has been suggested, he had
better either turn it into a brick-yard or emigrate.

_Sandy Ground._--Suppose that, in contrast, our soil is a light sand.
In this case the question of cultivation is greatly simplified, but the
problem of obtaining a heavy crop is correspondingly difficult. The
plow and the cultivator run readily enough, and much less labor is
required to keep the weeds in subjection, but as a rule, light land
yields little fruit; and yet under favorable circumstances I have seen
magnificent crops of certain varieties growing on sand. If sufficient
moisture and fertility can be maintained, many of our best varieties
will thrive and produce abundantly; but to do this is the very pith of
our difficulty. Too often a sandy soil will not retain moisture and
manure. Such light land is generally very deficient in vegetable
matter; and therefore, whenever it is possible, I would turn under
green crops. If the soil could be made sufficiently fertile to produce
a heavy crop of clover, and this were plowed under in June, and then
buckwheat harrowed in and its rank growth turned under in August,
strawberries could be planted as soon as the heat of decay was over,
with excellent prospects of fine crops for the three succeeding years.
Did I propose to keep the land in strawberries, I would then give it
another year of clover and buckwheat, adding bone-dust, potash, and a
very little lime in some form. The green crop, when decayed, is lighter
than clay, and renders its tenacious texture more friable and porous;
it also benefits the sandy soil by supplying the absent humus, or
vegetable mould, which is essential to all plant life. This mould is
also cool and humid in its nature, and aids in retaining moisture.

With the exception of the constant effort to place green vegetable
matter under the surface, my treatment of sandy ground would be the
reverse of that described for clay. Before using the product of the
horse-stable, I would compost it with at least an equal bulk of leaves,
muck, sods, or even plain earth if nothing better could be found. A
compost of stable manure with clay would be most excellent. If
possible, I would not use any manure on light ground until all
fermentation was over, and then I would rather _harrow_ than plow it
in. This will leave it near the surface, and the rains will leach it
down to the roots--and below them, also--only too soon. Fertility
cannot be stored up in sand as in clay, and it should be our aim to
give our strawberries the food they need in a form that permits of its
immediate use. Therefore, in preparing such land, I would advise deep
plowing while it is moist, if possible, soon after a rain; then the
harrowing in of a liberal top-dressing of rotted compost, or of muck
sweetened by the action of frost and the fermentation of manure, or,
best of all, the product of the cow-stable. Decayed leaves, sods, and
wood-ashes also make excellent fertilizers.

In the garden, light soils can be given a much more stable and
productive character by covering them with clay to the depth of one or
two inches every fall, and then plowing it in. The winter's frost and
rains mix the two diverse soils, to their mutual benefit. Carting sand
on clay is rarely remunerative; the reverse is decidedly so, and
top-dressings of clay on light land are often more beneficial than
equal amounts of manure.

As practically employed, I regard quick, stimulating manures, like
aguno, very injurious to light soils. I believe them to be the curse of
the South. They are used "to make a crop," as it is termed; and they do
make it for a few years, but to the utter impoverishment of the land.
The soil becomes as exhausted as a man would be should he seek to labor
under the support of stimulants only. In both instances, an abundance
of food is needed. A quinine pill is not a dinner, and a dusting of
guano or phosphate cannot enrich the land.

And yet, by the aid of these stimulating commercial fertilizers, the
poorest and thinnest soil can be made to produce fine strawberries, if
sufficient moisture can be maintained. Just as a physician can rally an
exhausted man to a condition in which he can take and be strengthened
by food, so land, too poor and light to sprout a pea, can be stimulated
into producing a meagre green crop of some kind, which, plowed under,
will enable the land to produce a second and heavier burden. This, in
turn, placed in the soil, will begin to give a suggestion of fertility.
Thus, poor or exhausted soils can be made, by several years of skilful
management, to convalesce slowly into strength.

Whether such patient outlay of time and labor will pay on a continent
abounding in land naturally productive is a very dubious question.

Coarse, gravelly soils are usually even worse. If we must grow our
strawberries on them, give the same general treatment that I have just
suggested.

On some peat soils the strawberry thrives abundantly; on others it
burns and dwindles. Under such conditions I should experiment with
bone-dust, ashes, etc., until I found just what was lacking.

No written directions can take the place of common-sense, judgment,
and, above all, experience. Soils vary like individual character. I
have yet to learn of a system of rules that will teach us how to deal
with every man we meet. It is ever wise, however, to deal justly and
liberally. He that expects much from his land must give it much.

I have dwelt at length on the preparation and enrichment of the land,
since it is the cornerstone of all subsequent success. Let me close by
emphasizing again the principle which was made prominent at first.
Though we give our strawberry plants everything else they need, our
crop of fruit will yet be good or bad in the proportion that we are
able to maintain abundant moisture during the blossoming and fruiting
season. If provision can be made for irrigation, it may increase the
yield tenfold.




CHAPTER X

COMMERCIAL AND SPECIAL FERTILIZERS


In preparing and enriching the soil, and especially in subsequent
cultivation, concentrated fertilizers are very useful and often
essential. In dealing with this subject, however, I think we tread upon
uncertain ground. There is a great deal of apparent accuracy of figures
and analyses, carried carefully into decimals, but a wonderful deal of
vagueness, uncertainty, and contradiction in the experiences and minds
of cultivators.

It is well known that many commercial fertilizers are scandalously
adulterated, and those who have suffered from frauds are hostile to the
entire class. In their strong prejudice, they will neither discriminate
nor investigate. There are others who associate everything having a
chemical sound with "book farming," and therefore dismiss the whole
subject with a sniff of contempt. This clique of horticulturists is
rapidly diminishing, however, for the fruit grower who does not read is
like the lawyer who tries to practice with barely a knowledge of the
few laws revealed by a limited experience. In contrast, there are
others who read and theorize too exclusively, and are inclined to
assert that concentrated fertilizers supersede all others. They scout
the muck swamp, the compost heap, and even the barnyard, as
old-fashioned, cumbrous methods of bringing to the soil, in tons of
useless matter, the essentials which they can deliver in a few sacks or
barrels. On paper, they are scientific and accurate. The crop you wish
to raise has constituents in certain proportions. Supply these, they
say, and you have the chemical compound, or crop. A field or garden,
however, is not a sheet of blank paper, but a combination at which
nature has been at work, and left full of obscurities. The results
which the agricultural chemist predicted so confidently do not always
follow, as they ought. Nature is often very indifferent to learned
authorities.

There is yet another class--a large one, too--who regard these
fertilizers as they do the drugs of an apothecary. They occasionally
give their land a dose of them as they take medicine themselves, when
indisposed or imagining themselves so. In either case there is almost
entire ignorance of the nature of the compound or of definite reasons
for its usefulness. Both the man and the field were "run down," and
some one said that this, that, or the other thing was good. Therefore
it was tried. Such haphazard action is certainly not the surest method
of securing health or fertility.

In no other department of horticulture is there more room for
common-sense, accurate knowledge, skill, and good management, than in
the use of all kinds of fertilizers, and, in my judgment, close and
continued observation is worth volumes of theory. The proper enrichment
of the soil is the very cornerstone of success, and more fail at this
point than at any other. While I do not believe that accurate and
complete directions for the treatment of every soil can be written, it
is undoubtedly true that certain correct principles can be laid down,
and information, suggestion, and records of experience given which will
be very useful. With such data to start with, the intelligent
cultivator can work out the problem of success in the peculiar
conditions of his own farm or garden.

It must be true that land designed for strawberries requires those
constituents which are shown to compose the plant and fruit, and that
the presence of each one in the soil should be in proportion to the
demand for it. It is also equally plain that the supply of these
essential elements should be kept up in continued cultivation.
Therefore, the question naturally arises, what are strawberry plants
and fruit made of? Modern wine, we know, can be made without any grape
juice whatever, but as Nature compounds strawberries in the open
sunlight, instead of in back rooms and cellars, she insists on all the
proper ingredients before she will form the required combination.

"The Country Gentleman" gives a very interesting letter from Prof. S.
W. Johnson, of the Connecticut Experiment Station, containing the
following careful analysis made by J. Isidore Pierre, a French writer.
"Pierre," says the professor, "gives a statement of the composition,
exclusive of water, of the total yield per hectare of fruit, taken up
to June 30, and of leaves, stems and runners, taken up to the middle of
August. These results, calculated in pounds per acre, are the following
(the plants contained 62.3 per cent of water and fruit 90 per cent):

Composition of the water-free strawberry crop (except roots), at the
middle of August, in pounds per acre, according to Pierre:

                                          Plants    Fruits    Totals
Organic matter, exclusive of nitrogen     4268.4    1053.5    5321.9
Nitrogen                                    88.5      16.0     104.5
Silica, iron and manganese oxides           43.3   1.5/3.8      48.6
Phosphoric acid                             35.3       5.4      40.7
Lime                                       102.7       7.9     110.6
Magnesia                                    16.1        .7      16.8
Potash                                      89.1      19.7     108.8
Soda                                         6.4        .9       7.3
Other matters                              120.9       8.8     129.7

Dry substance                             4770.7    1118.2    5888.9"

These are the constituents that, to start with, must be in the soil,
and which must be kept there. This array of what to many are but
obscure chemicals need not cause misgivings, since in most instances
nature has stored them in the virgin soil in abundant proportions. Even
in well-worn, long cultivated fields, some of them may exist in
sufficient quantity. Therefore, buying a special fertilizer is often
like carrying coals to Newcastle. Useless expenditure may be incurred,
also, by supplying some, but not all, of the essential ingredients. A
farmer applied six hundred pounds of superphosphate to a plat of
corn-land, and three hundred pounds to an adjacent plat wherein the
conditions were the same. The yield of the first plat was scarcely in
excess of that of the second, and in neither case was there a
sufficient increase to repay for the fertilizer. It does not follow
that the man used an adulterated and worthless article. Analysis shows
that corn needs nitrogen and potash in large proportions; and if these
had been employed with the superphosphate, the result probably would
have been very different. Superphosphate contains nitrogen, but not in
sufficient degree. These considerations bring us to the sound
conclusion that in enriching our land it would be wise to use complete
fertilizers as far as possible; that is, manures containing all, or
nearly all, the essential ingredients of the strawberry plant and
fruit. If we could always know just what elements are lacking in our
soils, we could merely supply these; but frequent analyses are
expensive, and often misleading, at best. The safest plan is always to
keep within reach of the plants the food we know they require, and the
roots, with unerring instinct, will attend to the proportions. Hence
the value of barnyard manure in the estimation of plain common-sense. A
sensible writer has clearly shown that from twenty-three cows and five
horses, if proper absorbents are used, $5.87 worth of nitrogen, potash,
and phosphoric acid can be obtained every twenty-four hours, estimating
these vitally important elements of plant-food at their wholesale
valuation. In addition, there are the other constituents of the yard
manure which, if not so valuable, are still very useful. To permit the
waste of any fertilizer that can be saved or made upon our places, and
then buy the same thing with the chance of being cheated, is thus shown
to be wretched economy. Commercial fertilizers can never supersede the
compost heap, into which should go everything which will enable us to
place in the soil organic matter and the other elements that were given
in the analysis; and if all the sewage and waste of the dwelling and
the products of the stable, stys and poultry-house were well composted
with muck, sod, leaves, or even common earth, and used liberally,
magnificent and continued crops of strawberries could be raised from
nearly all soils.

In many instances, however, home-made composts are wholly inadequate to
supply the need, and stable manures are too costly or not to be
obtained. The fruit grower should then go to those manufacturers of
fertilizers who have the best reputation, and who give the best
guarantees against deception. There are perfectly honest dealers, and
it is by far the cheapest in the end to pay them their price for a
genuine article. If such concentrated agents are used in connection
with a green crop like clover, land can be made, and kept productive
continuously. In the use of commercial fertilizers, there should be a
constant and intelligent effort to keep up a supply of _all_ the
essential ingredients. Wood-ashes is a specific for strawberries. I
have never found any one thing so good, and yet it is substantially but
one thing, potash, and I should remember that the plant also requires
nitrogen, which guano, or some form of animal manure, would furnish;
lime, which is best applied to the strawberry in the form of bone meal,
etc. The essential phosphoric acid is furnished in bone meal, the
superphosphates, and also in wood-ashes. By referring to an analysis of
the ash of red clover, it will be found to contain nearly everything
that the strawberry requires.

The man who reads, observes, and experiments carefully, will find that
he can accomplish much with lime and salt. If one has land full of
vegetable or organic matter, an application of lime will render this
matter fit for plant food, and the lime itself, in the course of a year
or less, will be rendered harmless in the process. It also sweetens and
lightens heavy, sour land, and thus, _in time_ renders it better
adapted to the strawberry; but lime should not be applied directly, in
any considerable quantity, to strawberry plants, nor should it be used
on very light soils deficient in vegetable matter. The judicious use of
salt in _small_ quantities will, I think, prove very beneficial,
especially on light upland. It tends to prevent injury from drought,
and to clear the land of the larvae of insects. I am inclined to think
that much can be accomplished with this agent, and hope to make some
careful experiments with it. But it should be used very cautiously, or
it will check or destroy growth.

I have received a letter from Mr. J. H. Hale, of South Glastonbury,
Conn., that is such a clear and interesting record of experience on
this subject that I am led to give it almost entire:

"We have always used Peruvian guano, fish scrap, and ground bone to
some extent, but until the past five years have depended mainly upon
stable manure brought from New York city on boats, using about fifteen
cords per acre yearly, and always with satisfactory results, the only
objection being the expense. The price ranged from $8 to $12 per cord,
or on an average of $150 per acre; and in trying to reduce this expense
we commenced testing different fertilizers, planting, in 1874, one acre
of strawberries manured with two tons of fish scrap, at $20 per ton,
and one hundred bushels of unleached wood-ashes, at 30 cents per
bushel; making a total cost of $70. The result was a strong, rapid
growth of plants early in the summer, but in September and October they
began to show signs of not having plant food enough, and then we saw
our mistake in using fish in place of bone, or some other slow-acting
fertilizer that the plants could not have taken up so greedily early in
the summer, but would have had to feed on slowly all through the
season. The fruit crop the following year, as might have been expected,
was not a success, being only about half a crop. In 1875, we planted
another acre, using one ton of ground bone and one hundred bushels of
wood-ashes, at a total cost of $73; the result was a fine, even growth
of plants all through the season, and a perfect crop of fruit the
following year, fully equal to that on adjoining acres that had been
manured with stable manure at a cost of $150 per acre, to say nothing
of the carting of such a great bulk of manure. In the spring of 1876,
being so well pleased with the appearance of our one acre manured with
bone and ashes, we planned to fertilize all of our fruits in the same
way. Then the question arose, where were we to get the ashes? We could
buy enough for an acre or two, but not enough for our whole farm. What
were we to do? Potash we must have, as that is the leading element of
plant food required by small fruits of all kinds. We found we must look
to the German potash salts for what we wanted, and we therefore bought
several tons of High Grade (80 per cent) muriate of potash at $40 per
ton, using 1,000 pounds per acre, and one ton of bone at $35, making a
total cost of only $55 per acre. The plants did not grow quite as well
early in the season as those on the fields where ashes were used, but
later in the season they made a very fine growth, and at fruiting time,
in 1877, we harvested a full and abundant crop of strawberries and
raspberries. Since that time we have used nothing but ground bone and
muriate of potash to manure all of our berry fields with, and continue
to get fully as satisfactory results as in former years, when we
depended upon stable manure at more than double the cost per acre. Some
parties who have been looking into the matter suggest that possibly our
satisfactory results are owing not so much to the fertilizers as to the
liberal supply of stable manure used in former years. Yet the past
season we picked 143 bushels of Charles Downings per acre, from a field
manured with bone and potash, so poor and worn-out that two years
before it would only produce six bushels of rye per acre. That land had
no stable manure on it, and if it was not the bone and potash that
furnished food for the berries, we would like to know what it was. The
one mistake we have made is, I think, in not using six or eight hundred
pounds of fish scrap or guano, and only 1,500 pounds of bone. The fish
or guano, being such quick-acting fertilizers, would give the plants a
much better start early in the season than would be the case if only
the bone and potash were used. We shall try it the coming spring. In
applying the potash great care should be taken to have it thoroughly
incorporated with the soil, it being only about 55 per cent actual
potash; the balance, being largely composed of salt, would, of course,
kill the roots of young plants if brought directly in contact with
them. In fields where we have used the potash, we have been troubled
with white grubs only to a very limited extent, while portions of the
same field where stable manure had been used were badly infested with
them, and while I do not think salt will drive them ail out of the
soil, I do believe it will do so to some extent. Besides the
fertilizers I have named, we have in the past six years experimented in
a small way with many others. Among them Stockbridge's strawberry
manure and Mapes' fruit and vine manures, but have never had as good
returns for the money invested as from the bone and potash; and yet,
while they have proved of such great value to us, I would not advise
you or any one to give up stable manure for them if you can get it at
the same cost per acre, but if you cannot, then I say try bone dust and
potash in a small way, until you learn just what _your soil_ wants, and
then supply it, whether it be 500, 1,000, or 2,000 pounds per acre."

Mr. Hale adds:

"The most of our soil is a sandy loam. We have some heavy loam and a
few acres of clay gravel, and we have always had good results from the
use of bone and potash on all of these soils.

"We have never used lime on our berry fields at the time of planting,
and yet, as you know, all of our New England soils are deficient in
lime. We use some indirectly, as we grow clover to plow under, and
usually give at that time a good dressing of lime. As we try to have a
new clover field every year, we get all around the farm in six or eight
years, and we therefore get a dressing of lime all around once in that
time, and have never been able to see any ill effects from it. In fact,
we believe it a positive benefit in helping to keep down sorrel, if
nothing more."

There would be very few worn-out farms, or poverty-stricken farmers, if
all followed the example of the Hale brothers.

The value of potash and bone meal is thus clearly shown, but the latter
does not contain nitrogen in sufficient quantity. I think Mr. Hale is
correct in the opinion that he can secure better results by using at
the same time some nitrogenous manure, like fish scrap, guano, etc. If
he had heavy, cold, clay land to deal with, it is possible that he
might find the stable manure the cheapest and best in the long run,
even at its increased cost.

Mr. W. L. Ferris, of Poughkeepsie, writes to me that he has found great
advantage in the use of the Mapes & Stockbridge special fertilizers.
"My experience," he says, "is only as to strawberries, and on them I
would say that the result of applying equal values of manure--stable
and commercial--as to cost, would be from ten to twenty-five per cent
in favor of the commercial, as a stimulant to apply in the spring, or,
in small quantities, to plants first starting. This does not apply to
the first preparation of the ground. In this direction I propose to
experiment. I have heretofore applied fertilizers early in spring by
hand, distributing it along the rows."

Records of varying experiences, and the discussion of commercial
fertilizers, might be continued indefinitely, but enough has been said,
I think, to suggest to each cultivator unacquainted with the subject in
what directions he should seek success. If I were asked what is the one
special manure in which the strawberry especially delights, I should
answer unhesitatingly, the well decayed and composted production of the
cow-stable, and if the reader had seen Mr. Durand's beds of the Great
American variety in bearing, after being enriched with this material,
he would be well satisfied to use it when it could be obtained. The
vines of even this fastidious berry, that falters and fails in most
soils, averaged one foot in height, and were loaded with enormous
fruit. The subject may be summed up by an extract from a letter of Mr.
Alexander Hyde to the "New York Times":

"Nitrates, phosphates, and ammonia are good fertilizers, and just the
chemicals which most lands need, but plants require a good bed as well
as good food. The physical condition of the soil, as well as the
chemical, must receive attention; and we know of nothing superior to a
well-made compost for furnishing both the chemical and physical
conditions necessary for the development of our crops."




CHAPTER XI

OBTAINING PLANTS AND IMPROVING OUR STOCK


Having prepared and enriched our ground, we are ready for the plants.
They can often be obtained from a good neighbor whose beds we have
watched across the fence, and whose varieties we have sampled to our
satisfaction. But the most liberal neighbors may not be able to furnish
all we need, or the kinds we wish. Moreover, in private gardens, names
and varieties are usually in a sad tangle. We must go to the
nurseryman. At this point, perhaps, a brief appeal to the reader's
common-sense may save much subsequent loss and disappointment.

In most of our purchases, we see the article before we take it, and can
estimate its value. Just the reverse is usually true of plants. We
know--or believe--that certain varieties are valuable, and we order
them from a distance, paying in advance. When received, the most
experienced cannot be sure that the plants are true to the names they
bear. We must plant them in our carefully prepared land, expend upon
them money, labor, and, above all, months and years of our brief lives,
only to learn, perhaps, that the varieties are not what we ordered, and
that we have wasted everything on a worthless kind. The importance of
starting right, therefore, can scarcely be overestimated. It is always
best to buy of men who, in the main, grow their own stock, and
therefore know about it, and who have established a reputation for
integrity and accuracy. The itinerant agent flits from Maine to
California, and too often the marvellous portraits of fruits that he
exhibits do not even resemble the varieties whose names they bear. It
is best to buy of those who have a "local habitation and a name," and
then, if anything is wrong, one knows where to look for redress.

Even if one wishes to be accurate, it is difficult to know that one's
stock is absolutely pure and true to name. The evil of mixed plants is
more often perpetuated in the following innocent manner than by any
intentional deception: For instance, one buys from a trustworthy
source, as he supposes, a thousand "Monarch" strawberry plants, and
sets them out in the spring. All blossoms should be picked off the
first year, and, therefore, there can be no fruit as a test of purity
that season. But by fall there are many thousands of young plants. The
grower naturally says: "I bought these for the Monarch, therefore they
are Monarchs," and he sells many plants as such. When coming into fruit
the second summer, he finds, however, that not one in twenty is a
Monarch plant. As an honest man, he now digs them under in disgust; but
the mischief has already been done, and scattered throughout the
country are thousands of mixed plants which multiply with the vigor of
evil. Nurserymen should never take varieties for granted, no matter
where obtained. I endeavor so to train my eye that I can detect the
distinguishing marks even in the foliage and blossoms, and if anything
looks suspicious I root it out. The foliage of the Monarch of the West
is so distinct that if one learns to know it he can tell whether his
plants are mixed at a glance.

If possible, the nurseryman should start with plants that he knows to
be genuine, and propagate from them. Then, by constant and personal
vigilance, he can maintain a stock that will not be productive chiefly
of profanity when coming into fruit. This scrutiny of propagating beds
is a department that I shall never delegate to any one else.

It is not thrift to save in the first cost of plants, if thereby the
risk of obtaining poor, mixed varieties is increased. I do not care to
save five dollars to-day and lose fifty by the operation within a year.
A gentleman wrote to me, "I have been outrageously cheated in buying
plants." On the same page he asked me to furnish stock at rates as
absurdly low as those of the man who cheated him. If one insists on
having an article at far less than the cost of production, it is not
strange that he finds some who will "cheat him outrageously." I find it
by far the cheapest in the long run to go to the most trustworthy
sources, and pay the grower a price which enables him to give me just
what I want.

When plants are both fine and genuine they can still be spoiled, or, at
least, injured in transit from the ground where they grew. Dig so as to
save all the roots, shake these clean of earth, straighten them out,
and tie the plants into bundles of fifty. Pack in boxes, with the roots
down in moss and the tops exposed to the air. Do not press them in too
tightly or make them too wet, or else the plants become heated --a
process which speedily robs them of all vitality. In cool seasons, and
when the distance is not too great, plants can be shipped in barrels
thickly perforated with holes. The tops should be toward the sides and
the roots in the centre, down through which there should be a
circulation of air. In every case, envelop the roots in damp moss or
leaves--damp, but not wet. Plants can be sent by mail at the rate of
one cent per ounce, and those obtained in this way rarely fail in doing
well.

This fact should be carefully kept in mind by those residing long
distances from express offices, or the points from which they wish to
order their plants. Packages weighing four pounds and less can be sent
by mail and received with our letters, and by a little inquiry and
calculation it may be found the cheapest and most convenient way of
obtaining them. I find no difficulty in mailing all the small fruit
plants to every part of the continent.

The greater part of the counting and packing of plants should be done
in a cellar, or some place of low, even temperature, in order to
prevent the little fibrous roots, on which the future growth so greatly
depends, from becoming shrivelled. The best part of the roots are
extremely sensitive to sunlight or frost, and, worse than all, to a
cold, dry wind. Therefore, have the plants gathered up as fast as they
are dug and carried to a damp, cool room, where the temperature varies
but little. From such a place they can be packed and shipped with the
leisure that insures careful work.

After having obtained good, genuine plants to start with, we can
greatly improve our stock by a system of careful selection. This is a
truth of great importance, but so obvious that we need not dwell long
upon it. Let me illustrate what I mean by the course I propose to enter
upon during the coming season. In our beds of each variety there will
be a few plants that, for some reason, will surpass all the others in
vigor, productiveness, and especially in the manifestation of the
peculiar and distinguishing traits of the variety. I shall carefully
mark such plants, remove all others from their vicinity, and propagate
from them. Thus, in the course of two or three years, I shall renew my
entire stock of standard varieties from the very best and most
characteristic specimens of each kind. From this improved stock the
best types should be chosen again and again; and by this course I am
satisfied that a surprising degree of excellence can be attained. It is
on the same principle of careful breeding from blooded and perfect
animals. From very many localities come the complaint that Wilsons and
other fine old varieties are "running out." How can it be otherwise, in
view of the treatment they receive and the careless way in which they
are propagated? Even when unmixed, they are usually the enfeebled
children of degenerate parents. There is no variety in the country more
badly mixed than the Wilson; and the trouble often arises from wild
strawberries creeping in among them from the edges of the field. The
spurious plants are taken up with the others, and the mixture is
scattered up and down the land. The same is true with other varieties
that have long been in cultivation. Indeed, I have found mixtures in
new varieties obtained directly from the originators. Therefore the
need that the plant grower should give personal and unceasing vigilance
to the stock from which he propagates, and that those who take a pride
in improving their stock should often scan their beds narrowly.
Moreover, if a bed stands several years in the same place, new
seedlings may spring up, and thus create a mixture.




CHAPTER XII

WHEN SHALL WE PLANT?


Nature has endowed the strawberry-plant with the power of taking root
and growing readily at almost any season when young plants can be
obtained. My best success, however, has been in November and early
spring. The latter part of May and the month of June is the only time
at which I have not planted with satisfactory results. In Northern
latitudes, early spring is preferable, for at this season the ground is
moist, showers are abundant, and the impulse of growth is strong. The
weather is cool, also, and therefore the plants rarely heat or dry out
during transportation.

In the South, autumn is by far the best time to plant. When the young
plants are grown on the same place, they may be transferred to the
fruiting beds and fields any time between July and the middle of
November. The earlier they are set out, if they can be kept growing
during the remainder of the hot season, the larger will be the yield
the following spring. As a rule, plants, unless grown in pots, can not
be shipped from the North or South until cold weather. The forwarding
to the latitude of Richmond begins in September, and to points further
south in October and November; from Florida to Louisiana I hear of
almost unvarying success.

Of late years the practice of growing plants in pots and sending them
out as the florists do flowers has become very prevalent. These potted
plants can be set out in July, August and September, and the ball of
earth clinging to their roots prevents wilting, and, unless they are
neglected, insures their living. Pot-grown plants are readily obtained
by sinking two and a half or three inch pots up to their rims in the
propagating-beds, and filling them with rich earth mingled with old,
thoroughly rotted compost, leaf mould, decayed sods, etc., but never
with fresh, unfermented manure. I have found the admixture of a little
fine bone meal with the soil to be strong aid to vigorous growth. The
young runners are then so guided and held down by a small stone or lump
of earth that they will take root in the pots, indeed, quite large
plants, if still attached to thrifty runners, may be taken up, their
roots shortened to one-quarter of an inch, and these inserted in the
little pots, which will be speedily filled with a new growth of roots.
It is very important that abundant and continuous moisture should be
maintained. A hot wind or a scorching sun will dry out within a few
hours the small amount of earth the pots contain, and the plants thus
receive a check from which they may never recover. The amateur should
watch them closely, and the plant grower should employ a man with the
clear understanding that he would lose his position if he permitted
moisture to fail even for half a day.

In about two weeks, with good management, the plants will fill the pots
with roots, which so interlace as to hold the ball of earth compactly
together during transportation. This ball of earth with the roots,
separates readily from the pot, and the plant, thus sustained, could be
shipped around the world if kept from drying out and the foliage
protected from the effects of alternate heat and cold. The agricultural
editor of the "New York Weekly Times" writes me that the potted plants
are worth their increased cost, if for no other reason, because they
are so easily planted in hot weather.

The chief advantage of summer planting lies in the fact that we obtain
a good crop the following season, while plants set out in spring should
not be permitted to bear at all the same year. If we discover in May or
June that our supply is insufficient, or that some new varieties offer
us paradisiacal flavors, we can set out the plants in the summer or
autumn of the same year, and within eight or ten months gather the
fruits of our labors. If the season is somewhat showery, or if one is
willing to take the trouble to water and shade the young plants,
ordinary layers--that is, plants that have grown naturally in the open
ground--will answer almost as well as those that have been rooted in
pots. The fact that they do not cost half as much is also in their
favor.

The disposition to plant in summer or autumn is steadily increasing,
and the following reasons are good and substantial ones for the
practice. In our gardens and fields there are many crops that mature in
July, August, and September. The cultivation of these crops has
probably left the ground mellow, and in good condition for
strawberries. Instead of leaving this land idle, or a place for weeds
to grow and seed, it can be deeply forked or plowed, and enriched, as
has been explained. Even in July, potted plants may be bought, and
unless the ground is full of the larvae of the June beetle, or the
plants are treated with utter neglect, not one in a hundred will fail.
Say the plants cost us two and a half cents each by the time they are
planted, instead of one half to one cent as in the spring, is there not
a prospect of an equal or larger profit? A potted plant set out in
summer or early autumn, and allowed to make no runners, will yield at
least a pint of fruit; and usually these first berries are very large
and fine, bringing the best prices. Suppose, however, we are able to
obtain but ten cents a quart, you still have a margin of two and
one-half cents on each plant. Adding two cents to the cost of each
plant to cover the expense of cultivation, winter protection, spring
mulching, picking, etc., there still remains a profit of half a cent on
each plant. Supposing we have an acre containing 14,520 plants, our
estimate gives a profit of $72.60 for the first year. If we clear but a
quarter of a cent on each plant, we have a profit of $36.30. The
prospects are, however, that if we plant early in the summer, on rich
ground, and give good cultivation, our plants will yield more than a
pint each, and the fruit sell for more than ten cents a quart.

This estimate applies to the common market varieties raised with only
ordinary skill and success. Suppose, in contrast, one plants the large,
showy, high-flavored varieties, and is able to obtain from fifteen to
thirty cents per quart. The expenses in this case are no greater, while
the profits are very largely increased.

[Illustration: A Potted Plant]

Good potted plants can be bought for about $2.50 per 100, or $20 per
2,000. I do not think that they can be properly grown and sold at much
lower rates and afford a living profit. Freight and express charges are
a heavy item of expense, since the earth encasing the roots renders the
packages very heavy, and but comparatively few plants can be shipped in
one box. But, allowing for all expenses, I think it is evident that
people can obtain a fair profit from potted plants within eight or ten
months from the time of planting. Moreover, autumn-set plants start
with double vigor in early spring, and make a fine growth before the
hot, dry weather checks them; and the crop from them the second year
will be the very best that they are capable of producing. Two paying
crops are thus obtained within two years, and the cost of cultivation
the first year is slight, for the plants are set after the great
impulse of annual weed growth is past. With spring-set plants you get
but one crop in two years. The first year yields nothing unless plants
are sold, and yet the cultivation must be unceasing through May, June
and July, when Nature seems to give no little thought to the problem of
how many weeds can be grown to the square inch. If one wishes early
plants, he certainly should practice autumn planting, for a plant set
even in November will begin to make runners nearly a month earlier than
one set in spring.

Thus far we have looked at the subject from a business standpoint.

Those who wish plants for the home supply certainly should not hesitate
to furnish their gardens as early in the summer as possible. To wait
two years of our short lives for _strawberries_ because the plants are
a little cheaper in the spring is a phase of economy that suggests the
moon. Such self-denial in a good cause would be heroic.

If people will use a little forethought, they can practice summer and
autumn planting with double success, independently of the plant grower.
We have shown that there is no mystery in raising potted plants.
Moreover, in the hottest summers there are showery, cloudy days when
ordinary layer plants can be set with perfect safety. If the field or
garden bed is near where the layer plants are growing, the latter can
be taken up with earth clinging to their roots, and thus have all the
advantages of potted plants. Even under the Southern sun, hundreds of
acres are, in this manner, set annually in the vicinity of Charleston.

As the autumn grows cool and moist, layer plants can be obtained from a
distance and set out profitably in large quantities. The chief danger
in late planting results from the tendency of the plants to be thrown
out of the ground by the action of the frost, and a few varieties do
not seem sufficiently hardy to endure severe cold. I obviate this
difficulty by simply hoeing upon the plants two inches of earth, just
before the ground freezes in November or December. This winter covering
of soil enables me to plant with entire success at any time in the
fall--even late in November--instead of spring, when there is a rush of
work.

The earth is raked off the plants in March or April, as soon as severe
freezing weather is over; otherwise they would decay. Do not first put
manure on the plants and then cover with earth--cover with earth only.

Thus it will be seen that each period has its advantages, which will
vary with different seasons. If drought and heat come in early May,
spring-set plants may suffer badly. Again, periods in summer and autumn
may be so hot and dry that even potted plants can only be kept alive by
repeated waterings. My practice is to divide my plantings about equally
between summer, fall, and spring. I thus take no chances of failure.




CHAPTER XIII

WHAT SHALL WE PLANT?--VARIETIES, THEIR CHARACTER AND ADAPTATION TO SOILS


I have in my library an admirable little treatise written by the late
R. G. Pardee, and printed twenty-five years ago. While the greater part
of what he says, relating to the requirements of the plant and its
culture, is substantially correct, his somewhat extended list of
varieties is almost wholly obsolete. With the exception of Hovey's
Seedling, scarcely one can be found in a modern catalogue. Even
carefully prepared lists, made at a much later date, contain the names
of but few kinds now seen in the garden or market. I have before me the
catalogue of Prince & Co., published in 1865, and out of their list of
169 varieties but three are now in general cultivation, and the great
majority are utterly unknown. Thus it would seem that a catalogue soon
becomes historical, and that the kinds most heralded to-day may exist
only in name but a few hence. The reasons can readily be given. The
convex heart of every strawberry blossom will be found to consist of
pistils, and usually of stamens ranged around them. When both stamens
and pistils are found in the same blossom, as is the case with most
varieties, it is called a perfect flower, or staminate. In rare
instances, strawberry flowers are found which possess stamens without
pistils, and these are called male blossoms; far more often varieties
exist producing pistils only, and they are named pistillate kinds.
Either of the last two if left alone would be barren; the male flowers
are always so, but the pistillate or female flowers, if fertilized with
pollen from perfect-flowered plants, produce fruit. This fertilizing is
effected by the agency of the wind, or by insects seeking honey.

The ovule in the ovarium to which the stigma leads represents, at
maturity, a seed--the actual fruit of the strawberry--and within each
seed Nature, by a subtile process of her own, wraps up some of the
qualities of the plant that produced the seed, and some of the
qualities also of the plant from which came the pollen that impregnated
the ovule. This seed, planted, produces an entirely new variety, which,
as a rule, exhibits characteristics of both its parents, and traits,
also, of its grandparents and remote ancestors. The law of heredity is
the same as in cattle or the human race. Thus it may be seen that
millions of new varieties can be very easily obtained. A single
plant-grower often raises many thousands to which he never gives a
name, by reason of the fact--noted elsewhere than in the fruit
garden--that most of these new strawberries in no respect surpass or
even equal their parents. The great majority, after fruiting--which
they do when two years old--are thrown away. A new variety which is not
so good as the old ones from which it came should not be imposed upon
the public. But they often are, sometimes deliberately, but far more
often for other reasons; as, for instance, through the enthusiasm of
the possessor. It is _his_ seedling; therefore it is wonderful. He pets
it and gives it extra care, to which even very interior varieties
generously respond.

In the same old catalogue to which I have referred Prince & Co.
announce: "We now offer a few of our superior new seedlings, with
descriptions, and there is not an acid or inferior one among them.
There is not one of them that is not superior to all the seedlings
recently introduced." Not one of these thirty-five "superior
seedlings," to my knowledge, is now in cultivation. They have
disappeared in less than fifteen years; and yet I have no doubt that on
the grounds of Prince & Co. they gave remarkable promise.

Again, a fruit grower sends out second and third-rate kinds from
defective knowledge. He has not judiciously compared his petted
seedlings with the superb varieties already in existence. It is soon
discovered by general trial that the vaunted new-comers are not so good
as the old; and so they also cease to be cultivated, leaving only a
name.

The editor of the "Rural New Yorker" has adopted a course which would
be very useful indeed to the public, if it could be carried out in the
various fruit-growing centres of the country. He obtains a few plants
of every new variety offered for sale, and tests them side by side,
under precisely the same conditions, reporting the results in his
paper. Such records of experience are worth any amount of theory, or
the half-truths of those who are acquainted with but few vanities. I
tested fifty kinds last year in one specimen-bed. The plants were
treated precisely alike, and permitted to mature all their fruit, I
being well content to let eight or ten bushels go to waste in order to
see just what each variety could do. From such trial-beds the
comparative merits of each kind can be seen at a glance. Highly praised
new-comers, which are said to supersede everything, must show what they
are and can do beside the old standard varieties that won their laurels
years ago. I thus learn that but few can endure the test, and
occasionally I find an old kind sent out with a new name. When visiting
fruit farms in New Jersey last summer, I was urged to visit a small
place on which was growing a wonderful new berry. The moment I saw the
fruit and foliage, I recognized the Col. Cheney, forced into unusual
luxuriance by very favorable conditions. Other experienced growers,
whose attention I called to the distinguishing marks of this variety,
agreed with me at once; but the proprietor, who probably had never seen
the Cheney before and did not know where the plants came from, thought
it was a remarkable new variety, and as such it might have been
honestly sent out. Trial-beds at once detect the old kinds with new
names, and thus may save the public from a vast deal of imposition.

Such beds would also be of very great service in suggesting the
varieties that can be grown with profit in certain localities. While
the behavior of different kinds differs greatly in varying soils and
latitudes, there is no such arbitrary mystery in the matter as many
imagine. I am satisfied that the sorts which did best in my trial-bed
give the best promise of success wherever the soil and climate are
similar. In contrast, let a trial-bed be made on a light soil in
Delaware or Virginia, and 100 varieties be planted. Many that are
justly favorites in our locality would there shrivel and burn, proving
valueless; but those that did thrive and produce well, exhibiting a
power to endure a Southern sun, and to flourish in sand, should be the
choice for all that region. To the far South and North, and in the
extremes of the East and West, trial-beds would give still varying
results; but such results would apply to the soils and climate of the
region if proper culture were given. A horse can be mismanaged on a
Kentucky stock-farm, and there are those who would have ill luck with
strawberries in the Garden of Eden--they are so skilful and persist in
doing the wrong thing. It would well remunerate large planters to
maintain trial-beds of all the small fruits, and their neighbors could
afford to pay well for the privilege of visiting them and learning the
kinds adapted to their locality.

I think it may be laid down as a general truth, that those kinds which
do well on a light soil in one locality tend to do well on such soils
in all localities. The same principle applies to those requiring heavy
land. There will be exceptions, and but few of those containing foreign
blood will thrive in the far South.

In the brief limits of this chapter I shall merely offer suggestions
and the results of some experience, premising that I give but one man's
opinion, and that all have a right to differ from me. At the close of
this volume may be found more accurate descriptions of the varieties
that I have thought worth naming.

Among the innumerable candidates for favor, here and there one will
establish itself by persistent well-doing as a standard sort. We then
learn that some of these strawberry princes, like the Jucunda, Triomphe
de Gand, and President Wilder, flourish only in certain soils and
latitudes, while others, like the Charles Downing, Monarch of the West,
and Wilson, adapt themselves to almost every condition and locality.
Varieties of this class are superseded very slowly; but it would seem,
with the exception of Wilson's Albany, that the standards of one
generation have not been the favorites of the next. The demand of our
age is for large fruit The demand has created a supply, and the old
standard varieties have given way to a new class, of which the Monarch
and Seth Boyden are types. The latest of these new mammoth berries is
the Sharpless, originated by Mr. J. K. Sharpless, of Catawissa, Pa.;
which shows the progress made since horticulturists began to develop
the wild _F. Virginiana_ by crossing varieties and by cultivation.

The most accurate and extended list of varieties with which I am
acquainted is to be found in Downing's "Encyclopedia of Fruits and
Fruit Trees of America." It contains the names, with their synonymes,
and the descriptions of over 250 kinds, and to this I refer the reader.

The important question to most minds is not how many varieties exist,
but what kinds will give the best returns. If one possesses the deep,
rich, moist loam that has been described, almost any good variety will
yield a fair return, and the best can be made to give surprising
results. For table use and general cultivation, North and South, East
and West, I would recommend the Charles Downing, Monarch of the West,
Seth Boyden, Kentucky Seedling, Duchess, and Golden Defiance. These
varieties are all first-rate in quality, and they have shown a
wonderful adaptation to varied soils and climates. They have been
before the public a number of years, and have persistently proved their
excellence. Therefore, they are worthy of a place in every garden. With
these valuable varieties for our chief supply, we can try a score of
other desirable kinds, retaining such as prove to be adapted to our
taste and soil.

If our land is heavy, we can add to the above, in Northern latitudes,
Triomphe de Gand, Jucunda, President Wilder, Forest Rose, President
Lincoln, Sharpless, Pioneer, and Springdale.

If the soil is light, containing a large proportion of sand and gravel,
the Charles Downing, Kentucky Seedling, Monarch of the West, Duchess,
Cumberland Triumph, Miner's Prolific, Golden Defiance, and Sharpless
will be almost certain to yield a fine supply of large and delicious
berries, both North and South.

Let me here observe that varieties that do well on light soils also
thrive equally well and often better on heavy land. But the converse is
not true. The Jucunda, for instance, can scarcely be made to exist on
light land. In the South, it should be the constant aim to find
varieties whose foliage can endure the hot sun. I think that the
Sharpless, which is now producing a great sensation as well as mammoth
berries, will do well in most Southern localities. It maintained
throughout the entire summer the greenest and most vigorous foliage I
ever saw. Miner's Prolific, Golden Defiance, Early Hudson, and
Cumberland Triumph also appear to me peculiarly adapted to Southern
cultivation.

As we go north, the difficulties of choice are not so great. Coolness
and moisture agree with the strawberry plant. There the question of
hardiness is to be first considered. In regions, however, where the
snow falls early and covers the ground all winter, the strawberry is
not so exposed as with us, for our gardens are often bare in zero
weather. Usually, it is not the temperature of the air that injures a
dormant strawberry plant, but alternations of freezing and thawing. The
deep and unmelting snows often ena

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