Buchanan County bulletin. [volume] (Independence, Iowa) 1869-1891, 1878-02-01
Failure in My Strawberries.

EDIToRs of WESTERN RURAL:-I be-
lieve that | promised to tell your read
crs of some of my failures. 1t is not
very pleasant to do So | had much
rather tell of a splendid success; and it
is all the more annoying to tell of a fail
ure in this crop, as it is one of my pet
crops, and one with which | have been
almost uniformly seccessful. Wife says
that am proud and need to be set back
occasionally to keep me within reasona-
BILE bounds Well, such failure as that
of last season was very well calculated
to keep one from being very proud OF
his ability to make success certainty,
and it did say very plainly to me You
do not know it all yet"
In the Spring of 1876 we prepared
with great care a piece OF ground for
Strawberries 1t was set with the Will
son, and confidently looked forward to
the season Of II for one of the largest
crops that | ever raised. | knew the
land to be very rich. 1t was heavily
MANFRED and we'll cultivated, and we
kept the plants in good condition. Dur
ing the Summer the white grub made
his appearance in the beds, as was
shown by the willing down of some of
the plants and the blue and dull look of
others. We had plenty of nice new
plants, and we took out all the affected
ones, dug out all the grubs that we
could find and put in nice new plants.
We went over the most of them, | think,
three times during the Fall, and tried to
destroy the grubs, and reset with new
plants for all those that were killed or
injured. But in spite of all our efforts
some of the beds showed very plainly
that they had been injured, and that the
crop would not be what | had hoped for
Before the snow came we had one or
covering from them in places, and it
was not replaced Wherever this was
the case, the plants were dead in the
Spring almost to the last one Of them
All of those that remained covered win
tered well.
In the spring as soon as the plants
started, | noticed that something was
eating the leaves. Hundreds and thou
sands of them had the foliage eaten off
about as fast as it appeared. | examin
ed them repeatedly to try and find out
the cause of the trouble After the
plants were in bloom and the fruit had
commenced to SET we found that the
common brown cut-worm had been our
worst enemy; but owing to their work
ing at night, and being hid in the ground
during the day, we had never seen them
and more than that, | had never known
them to disturb strawberry vines, and
of course was not looking for them.
Still later, | found the new enemy call
ed the leaf-roller among them, but it
was too late to apply Paris green, as the
fruit was setting During the month of
June we had dry weather and cold
winds, which ] am satisfied injured the
sets and in many cases made the fruit
small and imperfect,
The result Of the whole was that we
had about one-fourth of what we mi ht
have fairly expected when we set the
beds in the spring of 1876. Now such
crop as this is neither profitable to
have nor pleasant to report. | think
now that | can protect myself hereaf
ter against both the brown cut-worm
and the leaf roller. But what shall |
do with the white grub worm? Can
any one of your readers help me out of
this difficulty? j. NJ SMITH.
Green Bay, Wis.