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Having prepared and enriched our ground, we are ready for the plants. They can often be obtained from a good neighbor whose beds we have watched across the fence, and whose varieties we have sampled to our satisfaction. But the most liberal neighbors may not be able to furnish all we need, or the kinds we wish. Moreover, in private gardens, names and varieties are usually in a sad tangle. We must go to the nurseryman. At this point, perhaps, a brief appeal to the reader's common-sense may save much subsequent loss and disappointment.
In most of our purchases, we see the article before we take it, and can estimate its value. Just the reverse is usually true of plants. We know—or believe—that certain varieties are valuable, and we order them from a distance, paying in advance. When received, the most experienced cannot be sure that the plants are true to the names they bear. We must plant them in our carefully prepared land, expend upon them money, labor, and, above all, months and years of our brief lives, only to learn, perhaps, that the varieties are not what we ordered, and that we have wasted everything on a worthless kind. The importance of starting right, therefore, can scarcely be overestimated. It is always best to buy of men who, in the main, grow their own stock, and therefore know about it, and who have established a reputation for integrity and accuracy. The itinerant agent flits from Maine to California, and too often the marvellous portraits of fruits that he exhibits do not even resemble the varieties whose names they bear. It is best to buy of those who have a "local habitation and a name," and then, if anything is wrong, one knows where to look for redress.
Even if one wishes to be accurate, it is difficult to know that one's stock is absolutely pure and true to name. The evil of mixed plants is more often perpetuated in the following innocent manner than by any intentional deception: For instance, one buys from a trustworthy source, as he supposes, a thousand "Monarch" strawberry plants, and sets them out in the spring. All blossoms should be picked off the first year, and, therefore, there can be no fruit as a test of purity that season. But by fall there are many thousands of young plants. The grower naturally says: "I bought these for the Monarch, therefore they are Monarchs," and he sells many plants as such. When coming into fruit the second summer, he finds, however, that not one in twenty is a Monarch plant. As an honest man, he now digs them under in disgust; but the mischief has already been done, and scattered throughout the country are thousands of mixed plants which multiply with the vigor of evil. Nurserymen should never take varieties for granted, no matter where obtained. I endeavor so to train my eye that I can detect the distinguishing marks even in the foliage and blossoms, and if anything looks suspicious I root it out. The foliage of the Monarch of the West is so distinct that if one learns to know it he can tell whether his plants are mixed at a glance.
If possible, the nurseryman should start with plants that he knows to be genuine, and propagate from them. Then, by constant and personal vigilance, he can maintain a stock that will not be productive chiefly of profanity when coming into fruit. This scrutiny of propagating beds is a department that I shall never delegate to any one else.
It is not thrift to save in the first cost of plants, if thereby the risk of obtaining poor, mixed varieties is increased. I do not care to save five dollars to-day and lose fifty by the operation within a year. A gentleman wrote to me, "I have been outrageously cheated in buying plants." On the same page he asked me to furnish stock at rates as absurdly low as those of the man who cheated him. If one insists on having an article at far less than the cost of production, it is not strange that he finds some who will "cheat him outrageously." I find it by far the cheapest in the long run to go to the most trustworthy sources, and pay the grower a price which enables him to give me just what I want.
When plants are both fine and genuine they can still be spoiled, or, at least, injured in transit from the ground where they grew. Dig so as to save all the roots, shake these clean of earth, straighten them out, and tie the plants into bundles of fifty. Pack in boxes, with the roots down in moss and the tops exposed to the air. Do not press them in too tightly or make them too wet, or else the plants become heated —a process which speedily robs them of all vitality. In cool seasons, and when the distance is not too great, plants can be shipped in barrels thickly perforated with holes. The tops should be toward the sides and the roots in the centre, down through which there should be a circulation of air. In every case, envelop the roots in damp moss or leaves—damp, but not wet. Plants can be sent by mail at the rate of one cent per ounce, and those obtained in this way rarely fail in doing well.
This fact should be carefully kept in mind by those residing long distances from express offices, or the points from which they wish to order their plants. Packages weighing four pounds and less can be sent by mail and received with our letters, and by a little inquiry and calculation it may be found the cheapest and most convenient way of obtaining them. I find no difficulty in mailing all the small fruit plants to every part of the continent.
The greater part of the counting and packing of plants should be done in a cellar, or some place of low, even temperature, in order to prevent the little fibrous roots, on which the future growth so greatly depends, from becoming shrivelled. The best part of the roots are extremely sensitive to sunlight or frost, and, worse than all, to a cold, dry wind. Therefore, have the plants gathered up as fast as they are dug and carried to a damp, cool room, where the temperature varies but little. From such a place they can be packed and shipped with the leisure that insures careful work.
After having obtained good, genuine plants to start with, we can greatly improve our stock by a system of careful selection. This is a truth of great importance, but so obvious that we need not dwell long upon it. Let me illustrate what I mean by the course I propose to enter upon during the coming season. In our beds of each variety there will be a few plants that, for some reason, will surpass all the others in vigor, productiveness, and especially in the manifestation of the peculiar and distinguishing traits of the variety. I shall carefully mark such plants, remove all others from their vicinity, and propagate from them. Thus, in the course of two or three years, I shall renew my entire stock of standard varieties from the very best and most characteristic specimens of each kind. From this improved stock the best types should be chosen again and again; and by this course I am satisfied that a surprising degree of excellence can be attained. It is on the same principle of careful breeding from blooded and perfect animals. From very many localities come the complaint that Wilsons and other fine old varieties are "running out." How can it be otherwise, in view of the treatment they receive and the careless way in which they are propagated? Even when unmixed, they are usually the enfeebled children of degenerate parents. There is no variety in the country more badly mixed than the Wilson; and the trouble often arises from wild strawberries creeping in among them from the edges of the field. The spurious plants are taken up with the others, and the mixture is scattered up and down the land. The same is true with other varieties that have long been in cultivation. Indeed, I have found mixtures in new varieties obtained directly from the originators. Therefore the need that the plant grower should give personal and unceasing vigilance to the stock from which he propagates, and that those who take a pride in improving their stock should often scan their beds narrowly. Moreover, if a bed stands several years in the same place, new seedlings may spring up, and thus create a mixture.