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and Baltimore Scarlet (early), Charles Downing, Russell, Reed's Late Pine, Jucunda (all late), and Boyden's No. 30. With these varieties, aided by cool moist weather, our strawberry season was extended, in this locality, through a period of forty-five days. On eighty four rods of ground, the Wilson variety yielded one hundred and fortyeight bushels of very large fruit. One-fourth of an acre planted with the other varieties yielded forty bushels, but as I kept only the aggregate account of all, cannot state separately, what each variety produced on this plat. Boyden's No. 30 and Charles Downing, produced the largest strawberries and sold most rapidly in our local market.

The land on which this crop was raised is elevated sixty or seventy feet above Lake Mendota; the Wilson beds sloped southeast, and the others northeast; soil, clay. The ground, broken up only four years ago, was plowed in the autumn of 1874, and again in the spring after spreading thereon twenty load of manure, well decomposed.

The plants were set in rows three feet apart, and fifteen inches in the rows. A horse and cultivator were used to keep down weeds between the rows, and as we hoed the plants, we trained runners along the rows, and picked off all blossoms by hand as they appeared. Later in the season, all weeding and stirring the soil, was done with hoes and by hand-pulling. As the ground commenced freezing, I covered the plants lightly with forest-leaves, and over them, scattered a light covering of wheat-straw, none of which material was removed in the spring. The plants pushed through the covering with wonderful vigor. Means had been provided for wetting the plants, and mulching, to guard against drought, but timely and abundant rains, furnished all needed moisture here last season.

All the varieties I have mentioned, produce fair crops in this vicinity with good culture; but the Wilson is most profitable for us, who raise the fruit to sell, as it bears abundantly every year, will bear transportation to distant markets, and is unsurpassed for canning purposes. Its quality is not quite equal to some others, but thousands relish it heartily. Near the shores of the lakes around Madison are uplands, that are seldom visited by early and late frosts, where this fruit is grown in the greatest perfection; and the time is near at hand, when large quantities will be grown yearly; already some fruit is shipped from here to other points, in this and adjoining States.

PHILIP CHEEK, BARABOO.

From one-tenth of an acre we picked seven hundred and fifty quarts of strawberries in the season of 1875, which sold, the lowest, small Wilson's, for 12 cents; the highest price for any was 35 cents per quart, for Downing. We will put the average at 15 cents per quart, which would make it $112.50 for the crop. This would be at the rate of $1,125 per acre; but the fact is, that after using all a family of six needed, we sold enough to realize $120 from this piece of ground. This is explained by the fact that only a few bushels of the whole were Wilson's, the rest being Nicanor, Arena, Peak's Emperor, Agriculturalist, Boyden's No. 30, Charles Downing, President Wilder, and Kentucky, which I can always sell in this market for five cents per quart more than Wilson's. It must be borne in mind that this piece of land was not irrigated, or watered in any way, except by the rainfall, and neither was it mulched.

J. M. SMITH, GREEN BAY.

In accordance with the request of the members of the society, I furnish an account of the culture and yield of my strawberry plat for the last season. The soil is a light loam, somewhat sandy, with a yellow, sandy subsoil. It was naturally a fair soil, but for years previous to its coming into my possession, it had been miserably cultivated, and was so much run down, that for two or three years I did not make it pay expenses. Since that time it has paid handsomely. It will be, I believe, ten years next spring since I commenced improving it. Since that time it has been heavily manured and well cultivated every year.

This piece of land contains a little less than one acre, and is divided into four beds of nearly equal size. It is not underdrained, as its surface drainage is about perfect. No water ever stands upon the beds or in the alleys about them.

In May, 1874, it was manured at the rate of about twenty-five, two-horse loads of stable manure per acre; this was plowed in. It was then manured again with fine compost manure, at the rate of twelve to fifteen loads per acre, and harrowed, and then thoroughly raked by hand, with fine, steel-tooth rakes.

This was its condition when it was set with plants. The variety was Wilson's Albany Seedling. The plants were perfectly pare, and in fine condition. They were set in rows, leaving alternate spaces of twenty and twenty-eight inches; the average distance between the rows being twenty-four inches. The plants were set from twelve to fourteen inches apart in the rows. In the wide spaces between the rows early cabbage-plants were set. These came on finely, and gave me a splendid crop of early cabbage in July. The crop was taken off and then the entire ground given to the plants, which by this time had commenced to throw out a good many runners. My intention was to let each plant throw out six runners, and train them in a circle around the parent plant, and let each runner make one new plant and no more, destroying all other runners and all other plants. Owing to the very dry season this plan could be only partially carried out. Some of the plants made but very few runners. Others, that made more, were trained to the vacant spaces left by the weaker ones. Still, when I came to cover them in the fall, there was a fine stand of beautiful plants. They were covered about one inch in depth with pine leaves drawn from the forest. The covering was left on in the spring until all danger of freezing and thawing was past, when it was taken entirely off the ground. The plants appeared as nice and fresh as when they were covered in the fall. As soon as the plants began to start, the land was again manured with fine compost manure, at the rate of about twenty two-horse loads to the They were now in the best order for a large crop.

acre.

They had been hoed repeatedly during the previous season, and the land was entirely free from weeds and grass. A short time before we commenced picking, I selected and measured off one-fourth of an acre from what I considered the best part of the plat. The selected portion was a part of two beds that lay side by side, so that in reality it was a single plat with only an alley two feet wide running through it. This plat was picked by itself, and a very careful account kept of each picking.

The result was as follows: June 21, 3 quarts; June 23, 9 quarts; June 27, 122 quarts; June 29, 579 quarts; July 1, 91 quarts; July 2, 631 quarts; July 5, 59 quarts, July 6, 1,006 quarts; July 9, 216 quarts; July 12, 506 quarts; July 14, 241 quarts; July 16, 68 quarts; July 18, 32 quarts; July 23, 8 quarts; total, 3,571 quarts.

This it will be seen is one hundred and eleven bushels and nineteen quarts, or at the rate of four hundred and forty-six and threeeighths bushels per acre.

The account is undoubtedly correct. It was kept by one of my sons, who is the foreman in the garden and who is ready to testify to its correctness at any time. No account is made of those taken by birds, by admiring friends, or of those that rotted on the vines while ripening. Simply the merchantable berries that were actually picked and marketed, and nothing more. In the above estimate of land, the alleys are excluded. If we add the alley through the middle, and then add one-half the alleys around the outside of the beds, it would increase the land to nearly forty-three rods instead of forty, this will reduce the crop to the rate of four hundred and fifteen bushels per acre. There was in this plat of land three-fourths of an acre that was set with the plants. There might have been another quarter of an acre selected, that would have shown nearly as large a yield as is given above. The third quarter had a small bed of Jucundas in it, and they have always yielded poorly with me, and a large share of the balance of that quarter was injured by the white grub; still the yield would, by most growers, have been considered a good one, though it would have fallen much short of either of the other quarters.

I have no doubt but that the yield was increased very materially by artificial watering. To what extent I am unable to say. I can only say that they were watered as often, and as much as I thought necessary. I have often been laughed at, when I have said that four hundred bushels of strawberries, or at that rate, could be grown to the acre. The above is a fair and correct statement as to how it has been done. I believe that it can be done again. And what is still more, I believe that it can be beaten. If my life and health are spared I shall try hard to beat it in the years to come. Whether I shall succeed or not remains to be seen.

REPORTS OF COMMITTEE OF OBSERVATION.

FIRST DISTRICT, H. M. THOMPSON, SAINT FRANCIS, COMMITTEE.

COUNTIES-Kenosha, Racine, Milwaukee, Ozaukee, and Washington. The lands in this district may be stated as consisting of heavy timber, oak openings, and prairie. That which is cultivated may be particularly described as composed of various gradations of clay, sand, gravel, and loam. The hardiness and productiveness of orchards are greatest in the timber and least in the prairie soil. Currants, gooseberries, strawberries, and hardy raspberries flourish in all the different soils in proportion to their richness and the care used in cultivation. Grapes are most successfully grown on lands that have a southerly declination and having ranges of hills, or natural forests, or some artificial barrier to break the force of the winds.

The amount of fruit-tree and small-fruit planting in the past year has been greatly in excess of any former season since the year 1862. The kinds of fruits planted are as follows, given in order, commencing with the largest: Apples, strawberries, raspberries, cherries, grapes, currants, gooseberries, plums, and pears. The loss of last springs planting of fruit trees, in a few localities has been unusually large, but owing to the favorable season the percentage of loss of both fruit-trees and small-fruits in the whole district has been much smaller than in previous years. Without the aid of statutory enactment for the purpose of procuring statistics, it is impossible to give any reliable figures as to the quantity of fruit grown for home use and market. This is especially the case in regard to the apple-crop, the growth of which, is so universally distributed as to place the obtaining of statistics beyond the reach of unaided individual effort.

The most hardy and productive varieties of apple trees in all soils are Sour Bough, Sops of Wine, Red Astrachan, Fall Orange, Lowell, Fall Janet, St. Lawrence, Pumpkin Sweet, Russet, Colvert, Autumn Strawberry, Alexander, Duchess, Fameuse, Golden Russet, Baltimore, Pennocks Red Winter, Westfield Seek-No-Further, Tolman Sweet, Romanite, Grey Vandevere.

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