away back in the
time of the Wilson, than which we have never had its equal. The plants
grew well and wintered well, but they did not bear worth a cent, while
just over the fence I had a field on ground that had been worked twenty
years without manure that gave me two hundred and sixty bushels to the
acre. It took three years with other crops to reduce that loose soil
before I could make strawberries pay. My fortune all vanished.

Last June while judging your strawberry show, I found a large collection
of twenty-five kinds of the poorest strawberries I ever saw, grown on
the college grounds. I visited the field, found over a hundred
varieties, well tallied, well cultivated, on new oak opening soil. First
crop, the soil seemed ideal, every thing good except the plants and the
fruit. The foliage was defective and the fruit very poor. Was it the new
soil?

I have always found good garden soil would produce good strawberries;
the best beds were those that followed potatoes. Cut worms and white
grubs seldom follow two years of hoed crops.

[Illustration: Mr. Geo. J. Kellogg ten years ago]

_Preparation._ Preparation for the best strawberries should be started
three years before planting. Using soil from sand to clay, well drained,
well manured, sowed to clover, take off the first cutting of clover,
then more manure plowed under deep with the second crop of clover, as
late as can before freezing up, to kill insects and make the soil
friable and ready for a crop of potatoes the next spring. After
harvesting 300 bushels of potatoes to the acre use a heavy coat of well
rotted manure without weed seed, plowed under late in fall. The
following spring, as soon as the ground will work, thoroughly disk and
harrow, and harrow twice more. Then roll or plank it, mark both ways two
by four feet, set by hand either with dibble or spade, no machine work.
Crown even with the surface, with best of plants from new beds, leaving
on but two leaves, and if the roots are not fresh dug, trim them a
little. Firm them good.

Now start the weeder and go over the field every week till the runners
start, then use the nine-tooth cultivator with the two outside teeth two
inches shorter than the others. Cultivate every week till the middle of
October. Use the hoe to keep out all weeds and hoe very lightly about
the plants. Weeds are a blessing to the lazy man, but I don't like to
have it overdone. Don't let the soil bake after a rain. Keep the
cult