fc:m-. 



%i 411 STRAWBERRIES. 



planting tliom in the lowest jtart of tlie garden, tlioy not only get more benefit from 

 the rains, but the natural washing down of the soil will counteract the tendency I 

 have mentioned. 



No manure, unless tlioroughly decomposed, should be applied within six inches of 

 the surface of the soil for several months before planting your Strawberries, as the 

 dryness occasioned by this manure will seriously injure your plants. 



If your bed is small, and you wish to raise the largest possible quantity of fruit 

 from it, and will give it the necessary attention, set the plants about four inches apart 

 in rows a foot asunder, three rows making a bed. There should be a walk two feet 

 wide between the beds. In this method the runners must be cut off, and the earth 

 kept loose between the rows. The weeds will also trouble you, but with proper atten- 

 tion a large amount of fruit may be gathered. 



You may thin out your bed by removing the old plants, after a sufficient number 

 of young plants have struck root to serve for the next year. Or, you may, immedi- 

 ately after the fruit is gathered, spade in alternate strips of three feet wide, and when 

 these strips have become covered with young plants, spade in the old ones ; and so 

 renew your bed annually. I am here recommending what others have frequently 

 recommended. 



For three varieties to cultivate in this manner in thin region, I should choose Burros 

 New Fine, an early variety, of good size, excellent flavor, and very productive; 

 McAvoy^s Superior, a large, productive, and good berry ; and, as a fertilizer, as well 

 as an excellent berry and very productive, the Large Early Scarlet. But if you wish 

 for Strawberries that will " take care of themselves," or require little attention, plant 

 Crimson Cone, Cincinnati Hudson, and especially Dundee, with a few Large Early 

 Scarlets as fertilizers, and let them run over the ground. There are of course many 

 other excellent varieties beside those I have mentioned, and among them may be 

 named a new kind originated at Rochester, N. Y., called Monroe Scarlet. I have 

 found it a good fruit, a vigorous grower, and uncommonly productive. 



If, instead of a small patch in the garden, you have a quarter or an eighth of an 

 acre to be planted, put your plants two in a place, in hills eighteen inches or two feet 

 apart, and the rows two feet and a half apart. Cultivate as you would corn, cutting 

 up the runners as you would weeds. 



For mulching, especially when the plants are in drills or rows, as first mentioned, 

 I have tried nothing so good or so clean as straw cut short as for feed ; and when it 

 decays, it is of value to the soil instead of being injurious, like tan. As a top-dress- 

 ing, in addition to leached ashes, use leaf-mold or rotted turf. Swamp muck or peaty 

 earth, dried and mixed with sand, is an excellent top-dressing where the soil is clayey. 



Your correspondent "T.," in the Horticulturist for June, asks for information relative 

 to the value and use of tan-bark for mulching Strawberry plants, and as a winter cov- 

 ering for them. A few years since, tan was extensively used in this vicinity, both for 

 covering Strawberries and as a mulch for dwarf Pears and other trees and shrubs, in 

 consequence of the commendations of your predecessor, Mr. Downing, and of the 

 ies attributed to it by Frof. Mapes. The latter gentleman, I think, asserted that 



