This section is from "The Horticulturist, And Journal Of Rural Art And Rural Taste", by P. Barry, A. J. Downing, J. Jay Smith, Peter B. Mead, F. W. Woodward, Henry T. Williams. Also available from Amazon: Horticulturist and Journal of Rural Art and Rural Taste.
The following recipe for keeping old strawberry beds in bearing, is from the Friend's Review, a Philadelphia publication. What proportion of its efficacy depends on the frequent and regular watering, and what on the application of the nitre and glauber's salt seems uncertain:
"Those who know anything about the magnificent strawberries and the immense quantity of them raised in a bed 30 feet by 40, for several years past, in the garden formerly owned by me in King street, may like to know the process by which I cultivated them. I applied about once a week, for three times, commencing when the green leaves first began to start, and making the last application just before the plants were in full bloom, the following preparation: of nitre, of potash, of glauber's salt, and sal soda, each, one pound; of niirate of ammonia one-quarter of a pound - dissolving in thirty gallons of rain or river water. One-third was applied at a time; and when the weather was dry I applied clear soft water between the times of using the preparation - as the growth of the young leaves is so rapid that unless well supplied with water the sun will scorch them. I used a common watering pot and made the application towards evening. Managed in this way there is never any necessity of digging over the bed or setting it out anew. Beds of ten years old are not only as good, but better than those two or three years old.
But you must be sure and keep the weeds out." - Evening Post.
Here it will be perceived that, of four equally proportioned ingredients, two are formed of potash, i.e. potash and nitre (nitrate of potash;) and two of soda, i.e. glauber's salt (sulphate of soda) and sal soda (carbonate of soda).
Prof. J. F. W. Johnston, on page 328, of his "Agricultural Chemistry," in discoursing of carbonate of potash and carbonate of soda, states: "Many experiments have shown that both of these substances may be employed in the field with advantage to the growing crop." " In gardening, they greatly hasten the growth and increase the prodnoe of the strawberry" - " Mr. Fleming, of Barochan, has informed me that., he found this to be the case with the common potash; and Mr. Campbell, of Islay, with the common soda of the shops. They should be applied early in the spring, and in the state of a very weak solution.
These results confirm the experiments contained in Mr. Bryant's extract, if they did not give rise to them. And, while engaged with Prof. Johnston on this subject, (page 329,) a very valuable practical conclusion may be derived to the amateur cultivator, as I know by experience, touching the efficacy of the carbonates of potash and soda combined with organic matter. " It is stated by Spregel [Lehre vom Dunger, p. 402,] accord ingiy, as the result of experiment, that they are moat useful where vegetable matter ie plentiful, and that they ought to be employed more sparingly, and with some degree of hesitation, where such organic matter is deficient".
Touching the liquid applications, indicated by Mr. Bryant and Prof. Johnston, I ought to mention that Mr. Downing has been a long time as advocate of applying specific nutrition in solution to all fruit bearing plants during the fruiting process. The attributes are increased susceptibility to the plants at this period by which an appreciative receptivity of their special constituents is most sensitively and successfully sustained, The preferred times of application differ, the one preceding, the other attending the development of the fruit; but this may engender no material variance as to result, although my own experience accords with the opinion of Mr. Downing.
Under the "affirmative" record, the results, derived, from the varieties there enumerated, confirm in the main the truth and value of the general rule for uniform specific nutrition. Potash, the major element of the analysis, holds the highest representation in the production of plant and fruit; ashes (potash and lime - the latter also an important substance in the analysis) present the next claim; and phosphate of lime (holding a questionable or minor place in the analysis)' produces the least satisfactory impression. Yet the careful observer will perceive that the potash, alone, is quite equal to all the requirements of the plant and fruit in the department of inorganic constituents, and even here enforces its place as one of the special constituents, which is demanded as an increased, correspondent, and specific nutrition that bears no proportion to that of the exact analysis.
In the experiments, quoted by Mr. Bryant, potash and soda were used in equal proportions. The result offers "magnificent strawberries" in "immense quantity;" and, what is of equal importance, perpetuity to the plants in the same bed; plants ten years old being in better condition than those of two and three years. According to the analysis of fruit, by Richardson, the general rule of nutrition is more satisfactorily sustained here than in the other instances; while his analysis of fruit and plant gives the preference again to the potash, which, in the actual proportion applied to the plants, only equalled that of the soda. Agricultural chemists, e.g. Prof. Johnston, there are, however, who might be cited to demonstrate the special rank to which the potash is entitled from " the more abundant presence of potash in the soil generally;" or from the probability of the soda being the correlative of potash to the extent of supplying its place as a constituent of nutrition; or from the soda and potash acting alike in preparing the food of the strawberry, by combining with and solving the vegetable matter of the soil.
The experiments of Messrs. Fleming and Campbell confirm the reciprocal quality of substitution of these two alkalies for each other, either for direct or subsidiary nourishment of the strawberry.
The "exceptional" instances illustrate the extraordinary caprices of the strawberry plant, and naturally awaken conjecture as to the cause. It is not probable, although the different varieties belong to one family, that these exceptional members would, in their analysis, exhibit different constituents which would harmonise with the prepared mineral manure? Or, is it not more probable, that these recusant plants are endowed with interior impulses, and secerning forces, by which, in accordance with the rule I have proposed, they prefer one or more constituents in excess, and utterly diaproportioned to the rest, and thus elaborate through their elected media, their tempting and luscious products?