The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1884-06-28
Strawberries for Farmers.

wish l could induce every farmer
reader of this paper who does not grow
strawberries to appreciate the value of
a strawb berry patch. believe there is
no fruit which combines so many ex-
cellent qualities. Delicious, healthful,
comparatively free from insect pests
and easily produced in all kinds OF soils
what other luxury so cheap and yet SO
good? 1t is perhaps creditable to
farmers that the use of Strawberries is
rapidly growing popular among them;
vet it seems unjust that any person
having a patch of land should deprive
himself and family of full allowance
of this delicious fruit during its .fruiting
season.
The chief reason that strawberries
are not more generally grown by
farmers, is that the term strawberry
bed" often signifies something which
the ordinary, pushing farmer cannot
afford. The strawberry bed'' is as
ISOLATED with the flower garden, the
lawn and the grapery, rather than the
cabbage patch and the onion bed. In
other words, most farmers who do not
raise strawberries for family use believe
that their production requires vast
amount of skill, patience and labor
more than they can afford. This is by
no means the case. Every person who
can have cabbage patch can also have
a strawberry patch, and the latter re-
quires no more brains, patience or labor
than the former. Indeed those who
are accustomed to growing straw
berries in plenty for home use would
drop the cabbage patch rather than the
strawberry patch
The modern strawberry bed, instead
of meaning very small. raised plat OF
ground in the garden among the flowers
and shrubbery, as it often existed in old
fashioned gardens. signifies good
sized piece of ground where strawberry
plants are set out and cultivated with q
horse as we cultivate the corn and cab
bages. As labor Is the chief item oil
expense in growing garden products. il
| is important to practice cheap system
of growing strawberries. My system
| the chief merit of which is economy and
cheapness-is as follows:
/ set out strawberry patch every
year in the spring as early as practical
bic, usually during April. / do not ex'
pect to obtain but one crop from q
planting. although occasionally the
plants are left to bear two crops. The
advantages of this ''one-crop plan" are
that the first crop is nearly always the
best, and that to preserve bed tt
| produce more than one crop requires
too much labor in order to thoroughly
| clean the soil of grass and weeds, ant
loosen the soil between the rows ani
about the plants. By setting out 9
patch every spring and blowing dowr
| another one every year after it ha!
fruited, fresh bed is always ready Il
produce full crop of fine, large Der
ries. and the. expense for wedding an(
cultivation is tritiing.
Iplant in rows three and half fee
apart, and the plants are one foot apar
in the row. l keepth soil clean, loose
and open by frequent cultivation anC
the use of the hoe. No runners are cut
but they are allowed to take root along
the line of the rows. Late in the season
the cultivator teeth are narrowed ny
and the runners are allowed to form
matted rows foot or eighteen inches
wide. Late in autumn after the groun(
freezes hard enough to hold up team
the entire bed is covered over will
clean wheat or rye straw. My rule il
to cover just enough to hide the sol
and plants from view. In the spring
after the frost is out of the ground. thu
straw covering is raked into . ligh
winrow between each two rows o
plants and left there to remain to keel
down grass and weeds and prevent thu
soil from becoming dry. This is all thu
labor required before the fruit ripens
unless it be to pass over the bed ant
pull out q few weeds which may max,
their appearance. believe this to b.
the best system for those who hav,
plenty of land and on heavy soils, :
Cor. Country Gentlemen,