32 



HOW TO MAKE STRAWBERRY BEDS. 



an old bog, or bit of alluvial, afterwards 

 filled up,) not less than 8 or 10 feet deep. 

 Mr. Stoddart had raised some seedling Al- 

 pines, (which, so far as I know, always 

 come the same from the seed ;) he had by 

 lucky chance planted them in this corner 

 of his garden, where the soil was so unu- 

 sually rich and deep. There they grew 

 so finely, and bore such enormous crops, 

 that his neighbors could scarcely credit 

 their senses. The story of the miraculous 

 crop got into the papers. People came to 

 see with their own eyes. In short, they 

 bought and carried away the "Washington 

 Alpines," at extravagant prices, with the 

 full conviction that "seeing is believing," 

 and that such strawberries were never be- 

 fore grown, gazed on or tasted. Well, 

 great was their surprise to find, on plant- 

 ing and cultivating the "Washington Al- 

 pines, 1 ' that there was nothing new or 

 wonderful about them; and that, in fact, 

 they all dwindled down to the old fash- 

 ioned Alpine strawberry. Mr. Stoddart, 

 naturally enough, now has as many hard 

 names bestowed on him for the fancied de- 

 ception as he had before had hard dollars 

 for really great crops. And yet, Mr. Stod- 

 dart sold his plants in good faith, and was 

 probably as much deluded as the buyers. 

 The whole secret of his unheard of crops, 

 and the large size of his fruit, lay in the 

 depth and richness of his soil ; and as 

 none of his customers had, like him, a rich 

 ten feet mould to grow giants in, they had 

 no "Washington Alpines." 



The " moral" your readers are to draw 

 out of this digression is, that they cannot 

 well make their soil too deep for the straw- 

 berry. Perhaps they cannot afford to make 

 it three feet deep, which is the right depth 

 for an extra fine crop; but, at all events, 

 they can make it two feet deep. And now 

 a word as to manuring it. 



It is all very well to talk about composts 

 and " well rotted manure." The real truth 

 is, that in our careless country, not one 

 gardener in an hundred has such things 

 ready for use at the moment he wants to 

 prepare his strawberry patch. What peo- 

 ple have at hand, from one end of the 

 country to the other, is fresh stable or 

 barn-yard manure; and the question is, 

 how to use that to the best advantage. 



The true way to do this, is to throw out 

 the soil where your beds are to be made 

 two feet deep. Fill up the bottom eight 

 inches or a foot deep with fresh stable 

 manure, mixed with the litter, treading it 

 down firmly. Then cover this with two- 

 thirds of the soil thrown out, rejecting the 

 worst part of it. This will raise the bed 

 four inches above the surface ; and as it 

 will settle about four inches, it will be 

 about level after it is settled. 



This is all the preparation which I give 

 my soil, and it is all that any soil of fair 

 quality needs ; only that I would much 

 prefer to have it three feet deep than two 

 feet, and to have sixteen inches of stable 

 manure and litter at the bottom than eight, 

 though the latter brings heavy crops in a 

 good soil. 



You may put out your plants in August 

 or April. The only difference is, that if 

 planted in August, you may lose half of 

 them by the heat and drouth, unless it is a 

 rainy season ; while in April, you are cer- 

 tain not to lose a single plant, unless it is 

 unsound when you transplant it. 



To my mind, there is no way of growing 

 strawberries so complete as in beds three 

 and a half feet wide, with three rows in 

 each, — the plants in the rows kept clipped 

 of their runners, and the ground between 

 the rows nicely covered with straw all the 

 year round. The largest and finest fruit 

 is obtained in this way, and the beds them. 



