EXPERIMENT WITH A PLANT 145 



I have sometimes lost nearly half my harvest through 

 not netting the peas in time. The netting is effected 

 by hanging ordinary strawberry nets over a frame- 

 work consisting of stout ashen poles standing eight 

 feet out of the ground, and long, slender horizontal 

 ones of the same material, nailed to the tops of 

 them. Slender poles are better than laths (which I 

 have tried) for this purpose, as the nets can be slipped 

 over them easily, whilst they catch on the laths. 

 The small birds which can get through the mesh 

 of a strawberry net do little, if any, harm. 



If the poles are a good eight feet out of the ground 

 and the net is not permitted to sag between the 

 cross-pieces, the presence of a net does not interfere 

 with the giving of such attention as the plants require 

 during the summer. This attention is of two kinds : 

 one which is always necessary, hoeing and weeding ; 

 another which may or may not be required, cross- 

 fertilisation. 



It is desirable that the ground immediately 

 round the plants should be kept free of weeds by the 

 hand, say, once a fortnight, and that the six feet 

 between adjacent rows be kept free of weeds, and its 

 surface broken by the hoe, especially two or three 

 days after heavy rain so as to prevent the surface 

 from caking and the water in the soil from evaporating. 

 The Dutch hoe is best for this purpose, because with 

 this tool it is not necessary to walk over the part 

 which has been hoed, during the process itself. 



The cross-fertilising can easily be done by any 

 one with nimble fingers. 



K 



