Part 6 (1/2)
Norman J. Colman's choice for Missouri and the West: ”Crescent, Captain Jack, c.u.mberland, Champion, Hart's Minnesota, Cornelia.”
If I gave a hundred other lists, no two of them probably would agree in all respects. Mr. Downing often said to me, ”Soil, climate, and locality make greater differences with the strawberry than with any other fruit.” This is far more true of some varieties than others. I believe that the excellent kind named after Mr. Downing, if given proper treatment, will do well almost anywhere on the continent. It will be noted that it is on all the lists except one. I should place it at the head of garden strawberries. It is a kind that will endure much neglect, and it responds splendidly to generous, sensible treatment.
Its delicious flavor is its chief recommendation, as it should be that of every berry for the home garden.
I have tested many hundreds of kinds, and have grown scores and scores that were so praised when first sent out that the novice might be tempted to dig up and throw away everything except the wonderful novelty pressed upon his attention. There is one quiet, effective way of meeting all this heralding and laudation, and that is to make trial beds. For instance, I have put out as many as seventy kinds at nearly the same time, and grown them under precisely the same conditions. Some of the much-vaunted new-comers were found to be old varieties re-named; others, although sold at high prices and a.s.serted to be prodigies, were seen to be comparatively worthless when growing by the side of good old standard sorts; the majority never rose above mediocrity under ordinary treatment; but now and then one, like the Sharpless, fulfilled the promises made for it.
In my next chapter I shall venture to recommend those varieties which my own experience and observation have shown to be best adapted to various soils and localities, and shall also seek to prove that proper cultivation has more to do with success than even the selection of favored kinds.
Nor would I seek to dissuade the proprietor of the Home Acre from testing the many novelties offered. He will be sure to get a fair return in strawberries, and to his interest in his garden will add the pleasure and antic.i.p.ation which accompany uncertain experiment. In brief, he has found an innocent form of gambling, which will injure neither pocket nor morals. In slow-maturing fruits we cannot afford to make mistakes; in strawberries, one prize out of a dozen blanks repays for everything.
CHAPTER VII
STRAWBERRIES
There is a very general impression that light, dry, sandy soils are the best for the strawberry. Just the reverse of this is true. In its desire for moisture it is almost an aquatic plant. Experienced horticulturists have learned to recognize this truth, which the Hon.
Marshall P. Wilder has suggested 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 should give it a great deal more water.”
While emphasizing this truth the reader should at the same time be warned against land whereon water stands above the surface in winter and spring, or stagnates beneath the surface at any time. Moisture is essential to the best results; good drainage is equally so. The marvellous crops of strawberries raised in California under well-directed systems of irrigation should teach us useful lessons. The plants, instead of producing a partially developed crop within a few brief days, continue in bearing through weeks and months. It may often be possible to supply abundantly on the Home Acre this vital requirement of moisture, and I shall refer to this point further on.
My first advice in regard to strawberries is to set them out immediately almost anywhere except upon land so recently in gra.s.s that the sod is still undecayed. This course is better than not to have the fruit at all, or to wait for it A year without strawberries is a lost year in one serious respect. While there is a wide difference between what plants can do under unfavorable conditions and what they can be made to do when their needs are fully met, they will probably in any event yield a fair supply of delicious fruit. Secure this as soon as possible. At the same time remember that a plant of a good variety is a genius capable of wonderful development. In ordinary circ.u.mstances it is like the ”mute, inglorious” poets whose enforced limitations were lamented by the poet Gray; but when its innate powers and gifts are fully nourished it expands into surprising proportions, sends up hundreds of flowers, which are followed by ruby gems of fruit whose exquisite flavor is only surpa.s.sed by its beauty. No such concentrated ambrosia ever graced the feasts of the Olympian G.o.ds, for they were restricted to the humble Fragaria vesca, or Alpine species. In discovering the New World, Columbus also discovered the true strawberry, and died without the knowledge of this result of his achievement.
I can imagine the expression on the faces of those who buy the ”sour, crude, half-ripe Wilsons,” against which the poet Bryant inveighed so justly. The market is flooded with this fruit because it bears transportation about as well as would marbles. Yes, they are strawberries; choke-pears and Seckels belong to the same species. There is truth enough in my exaggeration to warrant the a.s.sertion that if we would enjoy the possible strawberry, we must raise it ourselves, and pick it when fully matured--ready for the table, and not for market.
Then any man's garden can furnish something better than was found in Eden.
Having started a strawberry-patch without loss of time wherever it is handiest, we can now give our attention to the formation of an ideal bed. In this instance we must shun the shade of trees above, and their roots beneath. The land should be open to the sky, and the sun free to practice his alchemy on the fruit the greater part of the day. The most favorable soil is a sandy loam, verging toward clay; and it should have been under cultivation sufficiently long to destroy all roots of gra.s.s and perennial weeds. Put on the fertilizer with a free hand. If it is barnyard manure, the rate of sixty tons to the acre is not in excess. A strawberry plant has a large appet.i.te and excellent digestion. It prefers decidedly manure from the cow-stable, though that from the horse-stable answers very well; but it is not advisable to incorporate it with the soil in its raw, unfermented state, and then to plant immediately. The ground can scarcely be too rich for strawberries, but it may easily be overheated and stimulated. In fertilizing, ever keep in mind the two great requisites--moisture and coolness. Manure from the horse-stable, therefore, is almost doubled in value as well as bulk if composted with leaves, muck, or sods, and allowed to decay before being used.
Next to enriching the soil, the most important step is to deepen it. If a plow is used, sink it to the beam, and run it twice in a furrow. If a lifting subsoil-plow can follow, all the better. Strawberry roots have been traced two feet below the surface.
If the situation of the plot does not admit the use of a plow, let the gardener begin at one side and trench the area to at least the depth of eighteen inches, taking pains to mix the surface, subsoil, and fertilizer evenly and thoroughly. A small plot thus treated will yield as much as one three or four times as large. One of the chief advantages of thus deepening the soil is that the plants are insured against their worst enemy--drought. How often I have seen beds in early June languis.h.i.+ng for moisture, the fruit trusses lying on the ground, fainting under their burden, and the berries ripening prematurely into little more than diminutive collections of seeds! When ground has been deepened as I have said, the drought must be almost unparalleled to arrest the development of the fruit. Even in the most favorable seasons, hard, shallow soils give but a brief period of strawberries, the fruit ripens all at once, and although the first berries may be of good size, the later ones dwindle until they are scarcely larger than peas. Be sure to have a deep, mellow soil beneath the plants.
Such a bed can be made in either spring or fall--indeed, at any time when the soil is free from frost, and neither too wet nor dry. I do not believe in preparing and fertilizing ground during a period of drought.
We will suppose the work has been done in the spring, as early as the earth was dry enough to crumble freely, and that the surface of the bed is smooth, mellow, and ready for the plants. Stretch a garden line down the length of the plot two feet from the outer edge, and set the plants along the line one foot apart from each other. Let the roots be spread out, not buried in a mat, the earth pressed FIRMLY against them, and the crown of the plant be exactly even with the surface of the soil, which should also be pressed closely around it with the fingers. This may seem minute detail, yet much dismal experience proves it to be essential. I have employed scores of men, and the great majority at first would either bury the crowns out of sight, or else leave part of the roots exposed, and the remainder so loose in the soil that a sharp gale would blow the plants away. There is no one so economical of time as the hired man whose time is paid for. He is ever bent on saving a minute or half-minute in this kind of work. On one occasion I had to reset a good part of an acre on which my men had saved time in planting. If I had asked them to save the plants in the year of '86, they might have ”struck.”
The first row having been set out, I advise that the line be moved forward three feet. This would make the rows three feet apart--not too far in ground prepared as described, and in view of the subsequent method of cultivation. The bed may therefore be filled up in this ratio, the plants one foot apart in the row, and the rows three feet apart. The next point in my system, for the kind of soil named (for light, sandy soils another plan will be indicated), is to regard each plant as an individual that is to be developed to the utmost. Of course only young plants of the previous season's growth should be used. If a plant has old, woody, black roots, throw it away. Plants set out in April will begin to blossom in May. These buds and blossoms should be picked off ruthlessly as soon as they appear. Never does avarice overreach itself more completely than when plants are permitted to bear the same season in which they are set out. The young, half-established plant is drained of its vitality in producing a little imperfect fruit; yet this is permitted even by farmers who would hold up their hands at the idea of harnessing a colt to a plow.
The plants do not know anything about our purpose in regard to them.
They merely seek to follow the law of Nature to propagate themselves, first by seeds which, strictly speaking, are the fruit, and then by runners. These slender, tendril-like growths begin to appear early in summer, and if left unchecked will mat the ground about the parent with young plants by late autumn. If we wish plants, let them grow by all means; but if fruit is our object, why should we let them grow?
”Because nearly every one seems to do it,” would be, perhaps, the most rational answer. This is a mistake, for many are beginning to take just the opposite course even when growing strawberries by the acre.
Let us fix our attention on a single plant. It has a certain amount of root pasturage and s.p.a.ce in which to grow. Since it is not permitted to produce an indefinite number of young plants, it begins to develop itself. The soil is rich, the roots are busy, and there must be an outlet. The original plant cannot form others, and therefore begins to produce fruit-crowns for the coming year. All the sap, all the increasing power of root and foliage, are directed to preparation for fruit. In brief, we have got the plant in traces; it is pulling in the direction we wish, it will eventually deliver a load of berries which would surprise those who trust simply to Nature unguided.
Some one may object that this is a troublesome and expensive way of growing strawberries. Do not the facts in the case prove the reverse? A plant restricted to a single root can be hoed and worked around like a hill of corn or a currant-bush. With comparatively little trouble the ground between the rows can be kept clean and mellow. Under the common system, which allows the runners to interlace and mat the ground, you soon have an almost endless amount of hand-weeding to do, and even this fails if white clover, sorrel, and certain gra.s.ses once get a start.
The system I advocate forbids neglect; the runners must be clipped off as fast as they appear, and they continue to grow from June till frost; but the actual labor of the year is reduced to a minimum. A little boy or girl could keep a large bed clipped by the occasional use of a shears or knife before breakfast; and if the ground between the plants is free of runners, it can be hoed over in an hour. Considering, therefore, merely the trouble and expense, the single-plant system has the facts in its favor. But our object is not to grow strawberry plants with the least trouble, but to have strawberries of the largest and finest quality.
In addition to ease and thoroughness of cultivation, there are other important advantages. The single narrow row of plants is more easily protected against winter's frosts. Light, strawy manure from the horse-stable serves well for this purpose; but it should be light and free from heat. I have seen beds destroyed by too heavy a covering of chunky, rank manure. It is not our purpose to keep the beds and plants from freezing, but from alternately freezing and thawing. If snow fell on the bed in December and lasted till April, no other protection would be needed. Nature in this lat.i.tude has no sympathy for the careless man. During the winter of 1885, in January, and again in February and March, the ground was bare, unprotected plants were badly frozen, and in many instances lifted partly out of the ground by midday thawing and night freezing. The only safe course is to cover the rows thoroughly, but not heavily, early in December. If then light stable-manure is not at hand, leaves, old bean-vines, or any dry refuse from the garden not containing injurious seeds will answer. Do not employ asparagus-tops, which contain seed. Of course we want this vegetable, but not in the strawberry bed. Like some persons out of their proper sphere, asparagus may easily become a nuisance; and it will dispossess other growths of their rights and places as serenely as a Knight of Labor. The proper balance must be kept in the garden as well as in society; and therefore it is important to cover our plants with something that will not speedily become a usurper. Let it be a settled point, then, that the narrow rows must be covered thoroughly out of sight with some light material which will not rest with smothering weight on the plants or leave among them injurious seeds. Light stable-manure is often objected to for the reason that employing it is like sowing the ground with gra.s.s-seed. If the plants had been allowed to grow in matted beds, I would not use this material for a winter covering, unless it had been allowed to heat sufficiently to destroy the gra.s.s and clover seed contained in it. I have seen matted beds protected with stable-manure that were fit to mow by June, the plants and fruit having been over run with gra.s.s. No such result need follow if the plants are cultivated in a single line, for then the manure can be raked off in early spring--first of April in our lat.i.tude--and the ground cultivated.
There is a great advantage in employing light manure if the system I advocate is followed, for the melting snows and rains carry the richness of the fertilizer to the roots, and winter protection serves a double purpose.