In like manner
strawberry plants are grown and sold. Little pots, three inches
across at the top, are sunk in the earth along a strawberry row,
and the runners so fastened down that they take root in these
pots. In about two weeks the young plant will fill a pot with
roots. It may then be severed from the parent, and transported
almost any distance, like a verbena. Usually the ball of earth and
roots is separated from the pot, and is then wrapped in paper
before being packed in the shallow box employed for shipping
purposes. A nurseryman once distributed in a summer throughout the
country a hundred thousand plants of one variety grown in this
manner. The earth encasing the roots sustained the plants during
transportation and after setting sufficiently to prevent any loss
worth mentioning. This method of the plant-grower can easily be
employed on the Home Acre. Pots filled with earth may be sunk
along the strawberry rows in the garden, the runners made to root
in them, and from them transferred to any part of the garden
wherein we propose to make a new bed. It is only a neater and more
certain way of removing young plants with a ball of earth from the
open bed.
Some have adopted this system in raising strawberries for market.
They prepare very rich beds, fill them with pot-grown plants in
June or July, take from these plants one crop the following June,
then plow them under.
Pages:
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183