The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1896-02-24
Strawberries in the Far south.

One popularity of the strawberry in
Florida is the great length of the ripening
season, writes s. Powers. in American
Agriculturalst. Ripe berries are some
times picked in December and January, but
they are not usually shipped much before
Feb Is or March 1. One year had enough
berries to make dish Feb. /, and on July
my children managed to find enough
scattering berries to make a strawberry
shortcake-all from a single variety, the
Neunan Improved, or Charleston, which
filled the whole interval between the two
above dates with ripe berries every day.
But they ripen slowly; the pickers seldom
obtain more than half a dozen berries from
a plant-not more than two or three on an
average.
The hill system is universally adopted
here, for several reasons. When berries
rtpen in the winter and early spring, the
sun is so low down In the south that the
sunshine may find and color up every her
ry. Ripening at this season of the year,
the berries are tolerably acid at the best.
and If they did not have a high color they
would not have much to attract the buy
er. Second, owing to the cost of horse
keep, most of the cultivation Is done with
hand Dlows, which permits very close
setting Of the plants; and as the latter are
small, the cultivation Is very nice and par
ticular, putting to shame the shaggy,
matted rows of the northern grower in
tenlarded with weeds and grass. Nine
ty-five per cent of the manure used is
commercial fertilizer, and IL is more con-
venient and economical to apply this in a
light furrow close beside the plants than
1t could be In a matted row.
The plants are set in the fall from Au-
gust to November. and fruit the following
spring. II protected and kept alive
through the summer, they will bear more
fruit the second year, and even the third
than the first, but the berries are never
50 large and fine after the first year
Most growers set a large proportion of
their beds fresh every year. During the
rainy season. Of midsummer there
grows up a great mass Of trash-chjefiv
crab grass and bull grassland unless II IS
checked by one or two hoeings or the
plants are shaded by some tail-growing
crop, like corn or rice, this trash chokes
the plants and kills them. The best grow
ers cultivate the plants half a dozen times
or four times. In the thin soils of Flori-
da, which are especially lacking in po-
fash, Ii is better to feed the plants along
from time to time than to apply the whole
ration of fertilizer at once. II plants are
set early in the fall and make q vigorous
growth, they must be sustained with an
plications of fertilizerS-especially potas-
ed with white bud" or die back" which
is simply an indication that they have
consumed their ration of food and need
more With Strawberries, as with Irish
potatoes, IL Is found to invigorate the
growth to secure fresh plants from the
north once in two or three years
One year / shipped 1872 bushels from 22<
acres (48,o00 plantsl, and the shipping sea-
son ended while the plants were still in
the hight of their fruiting. The average
yield of Florida viii not exceed so bush
els per acre, and many growers do not