I like the plan of Wildhagen; mow, burn and then cover three inches deep with one hundred big loads of manure to the acre and don’t go near the patch till picking time next year.  He gets a nice early crop, and if berries are a little small it pays better than any other way.  Try it!  I have known some fields carried to fourth crop, and amateur beds kept up for ten years.  It takes lots of work to keep an old bed in good condition.  J.M.  Smith, of Green Bay, Wis., almost always took one crop and plowed under.  If the first crop was injured by frost, he took a second crop.  He raised four hundred bushels to the acre.

Wm. Von Baumbach, of Wauwatosa, Wis., raised from five acres less ten square rods seventeen hundred bushels big measure beside quantities given the pickers.  I have had beds and fields where I have timed my boys picking a quart a minute.  I had one small boy that picked 230 quarts a day.  But in all my sixty years growing strawberries I never properly prepared an acre of ground before planting.  I could take a five acre patch now, as young as I am, and beat anything I have ever done.

Mulch.—­For mulch for small beds, if straw or marsh hay is not handy, use an inch of leaves, then cut your sweet corn and lay the stalks on three inches apart and your plants will come up between in spring and give you clean fruit.  Cut cornstalks are good for field covering, also shredded cornstalks.  I have used the begass from the cane mill, but it is too heavy.  Evergreen boughs are very good if well put on for small beds.

In my paper, Vol. 1911, page 180 (Minn.  Report), it should read five bushels to the square rod, not acre.  Who ever heard of five bushels an acre!

Big Yields.—­You all know of Friend Wedge’s 74-3/4 quarts from one square rod of Everbearers the season of planting.  I believe that can be beaten.  Let our society put a few hundred dollars in premiums for best yield of square rod of everbearers and of June varieties, and of a quarter of an acre; also the best product of one hill, and the best product of one plant, and its runners fourteen months from planting.  I believe one plant of everbearers can produce a quart the season of setting.  I know of the five bushels to the square rod, and the other fellow had four and a half bushel of Wilson.

Surprise Plum a Success.

C. A. PFEIFFER, WINONA.

I realize at the outset that I am treading on delicate ground in undertaking to defend the Surprise plum, on account of it having been discarded by our fruit list committee, but after seeing our young trees producing this year their third consecutive heavy crop I feel justified in taking exception to the action of the committee.  My first experience with the Surprise plum dates back to 1897, when Mr. O. M. Lord, of Minnesota City, probably the best authority on the plum in the state in his time, presented me with one tree, which at that time were being sold at $1.00 each, and I was cautioned against giving it too much care or I would kill the tree, and that is just what happened to it.