STRAWBERRY GROWING.

Auckland Star, Volume XXX, Issue 145, 21 June 1899, Page 3

STRAWBERRY GROWING.

♦ . - (By a Birkenheatl Blackbird.)] "'^J

There is money in strawberries. They crop heavily, fetch a good price, and an- really very easy to grow, if i you know haw. Tbey arc not a pre- : carious crop. The result is ns sure ;os day and night. Treat them right. | ;;ad you will tret your £5 a thousand or i hereabouts without any fear. jTreal them wrong and you will just : as surely g-et anything down to nothI ingl. The whole business is one of I knowledge. There is no secret about i the way to grow a strawberry—no j solitary special secret, But there are a hundred little matters that go to make tip proper treatment. If I were to tell you all I can remember about strawberries and their little fads and fancies straight off, you would probably fail because you would bo sure to discover that there was another hundred little matters that it never occurred to me to mention; and for want of knowing them, all your care about the first hundred was thrown away. When we g-et a fail- ! ure—a downright failure—we blame j the season, the plants, the soil, the ! manure—anything- but ourselves. Of ; course. It eases our mind. And i after a failure our minds will stand a . lot of easing. But w e try again. Oh j strawberry growing is a grand game. j Did you ever know a m:m start to ! grow strawberries and then give it | up? I know one or two. but they were exceptional people. Generally a I man sticks to his strawberry patch 1 for better or worse, like a wife. He argues like this. 'Well, I haven't done much this year. But then it's j been a bad season, and the chances are ;it will be a good one next year. Oh, it would be a pity to give up. Besides I've got £4 worth of Kempthorne's best bonedust in that patch, and I ■must take thp price of that out somehow. The Wilsons, and Tap Hawkins, and Branney, and McCiymont and j them have done all right. But they | started picking two months sooner I than I. Mine would have given a fine ! crop about the end of January if the dry weather hadn't kept on so long. They were jusf going to ripen off splendid when they all drooped and every Jack berry of them shrivelled up. Ju<S't my luck. And then the plants. Why they're no good at all. Some of Blank Blanky's. All seed T lings. And I paid him eight bob a thousand for them, lift them myself. But I keep clear of his plants next year. Meanwhile I'll knock around after a bit of gum, just to make up the tucker.' And after he has come to this conclusion he never forsakes that strawberry patch. He sticks to it harder every year, and the way he reproaches its ingratitude for swallowing up his bonedust and not paying him for it would touch the heart of anything but a strawberry plant. You cannot teach a roan to grow strawberries. You can teach him* to grow turnips, or even to dig potatoes if you do not mind the fork agoing through a good many of them. But strawberries are different. To grow them well, to get a huge crop of gigantic berries, and to get them every year, are results not to be secured in a hurry. There are some men—intelligent men—who, I am sure, never will succeed at the business. It is not in the line at all, and they loath the sight of a strawberry patch. You must have your heart in the work. The best growers always have some

problem perplexing1 them, because they search right down deep into the plant where all the mystery lies. There is no mystery on the surface. You never saw anything mysterious on a strawberry patch, unless it were the scarecrows. The whole picture is one of simplicity and plenty. There is not a trace of the coimpleyrity of conditions which were essential to the development of that crop. Strawberries and cream are predominant. And this, no doubt, is why so many; people have been tempted to start in. the industry, and have failed. They see nothing beyond the mechanical operations of ploughing, planting, hoeing, and mulching. So is it any wonder that strawberry growing has become a game of chance? You cannot learn 'how' altogether from books, nor from your neighbour. You learn it best from the plants themselves, and this is an expensive process, and a slow one, and a dreary one unless it agree with you. With ten or fifteen thousand plants, it costs a single man about £20 to get a failure, not counting rent, tucker, and his own labour. So you'll know what to do.