APPENDIX. 99 
mulate the vines to runners. The potash and acids 
contained in it are just what the ‘fruit wants. Should 
the vines be disposed to spread, keep the runners 
down by constant pinching off, and clear out the grass 
and weeds with the hoe. A few years of this culture 
will check their disposition to run, and encourage them 
to fruit. The bed, once thus formed and cultivated, 
will, to my certain knowledge, continue productive 
twelve years, and, I have reason to believe, as much 
longer as the culture is continued. Should the vines 
have taken possession of the ground, in spite of the 
efforts to keep the runners down, we go through in the 
fall with the Loe, thinning out the plants to 10 or 12 
inches, leaving every cut-up vine to decay on the ground 
where it grew; we then cover with the decaying leaves. 
When the plants begin to bloom in the spring, a top- 
dressing of wood-ashes will be found beneficial. I 
have tried strawberry culture with the plough, which 
will make a greater quantity of vines, but will give 
only one crop of fruit. It is generally remarked that 
the wild strawberry is finer flavored than the cultivated; 
but with this treatment the latter retains all the original 
flavor. 
It has been recommended by some cultivators to 
urigate the strawberry grounds by letting water on the 
vines; but the strawberry, cultivated after the manner 
described, can bear as great a drought as any other 
plant. It is not the vines and leaves that want the 
water, but the flowers and fruit; and the water must 
come in the form of rain, through the clouds, from an 
engine, or a common watering-pot. 
I have noticed quite a contest going on-among hor- 
