Part 21 (2/2)
Mr. McClelland: What time do you uncover your strawberries?
Mr. Kellogg: I don't uncover them at all. If you got on four inches of mulch you want to take off enough so the plants can get through, but keep on enough mulch in the spring to keep your plants clean and protect from the drouth.
Mr. McClelland: Will they come through the mulch all right?
M. Kellogg: They will come through all right if it isn't more than two inches. If they shove up and raise the mulch open it up a little over the plants.
Mr. Willard: I would like to ask the speaker, the way I understood him, why he couldn't raise as good strawberries on new ground as on old ground?
Mr. Kellogg: The soil seems to be too loose. Now, that twenty-one acres I had, it was full of leaf-mold. It was six inches deep and had been acc.u.mulating for ages. I couldn't account for it only that it was too loose, and I had to work it down with other crops before I could grow strawberries.
Mr. Willard: So it would be better to plant on old ground or old breaking than new?
Mr. Kellogg: Yes, old ground that has been well manured, or old ground that has never been manured, will grow better strawberries than new soil, as far as I have tried it. New clover soil is a good soil.
Mr. Wedge: It might add to the value of this discussion to state that Mr. Kellogg's soil at Janesville is rather light soil anyhow. I am under the impression that if his soil at Janesville which produced so poorly on new soil had been a heavy clay soil that the result would have been different.
Mr. Kellogg: That twenty-one acres was clay after you got down to it and was in the woods; my other fields were out on the prairie. I don't think the light soil had anything to do with it, with my failure in the woods, I think it was the new soil.
Mr. Sauter: Can the everbearing and the common varieties be planted together?
Mr. Kellogg: Yes, if you are growing plants you want everything.
Mr. Sauter: How far apart must they be planted?
Mr. Kellogg: So their runners won't run together, and they won't mix. If the runners mix maybe you would get some crosses that are valuable.
Mr. Clausen: I was just thinking it might interfere, that some one might not plant strawberries at all on account of new soil. I would say I have a neighbor, and he had entirely new soil. It was black oak and hickory--I have some of that myself. I never saw a better patch of strawberries than he had. I don't think I ever saw a better strawberry patch than he had of the everbearing kind, so I don't think it is just exactly the old soil.
Mr. Willis: I have my strawberries on new ground, and they did very fine, couldn't be better. From a s.p.a.ce of five feet square I got twenty-eight boxes, that is, of No. 3.
Mr. Wedge: Forest soil or prairie?
Mr. Willis: It was light clay. I have got about an acre and a half on new soil now, and they look very fine.
Mr. Glenzke: What would be the consequence of the berries being planted after tomatoes had been planted there the year before? What would be the consequence as to the white grub that follows the tomatoes, and other insects?
Mr. Kellogg: That white grub don't follow tomatoes, if the ground was clear of white grubs before. It is a three year old grub, and it don't come excepting where the ground is a marsh or meadow, and doesn't follow in garden soil, hardly ever. If the ground has been cultivated two years, you don't have any white grub.
Mr. Glenzke: Part of this ground had been in red raspberries, and I found them there. This year I am going to put in tomatoes and prepare it for strawberries. Will that be all right?
Mr. Kellogg: You may get some white grubs after the raspberry bushes if your raspberries have been two or three years growing. Potato ground is the best you can follow strawberries with.
Mr. Rasmussen (Wisconsin): What trouble have you experienced with overhead irrigation with the strawberries in the bright suns.h.i.+ne?
Mr. Kellogg: Everything is against it. You wet the foliage, and it is a damage to the plants. You can't sprinkle in the hot sun without damage.
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