Success with Small Fruits

by Edward Payson Roe

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.