Success with Small Fruits

by Edward Payson Roe

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.