8 Strawberry-Growing 



exposure — one that faces the south — is earlier and 

 drier than a northern exposure. It is, also, more subject 

 to alternate freezing and thawing during the winter and 

 early spring, which causes "honey-combed" soil, heaving, 

 and breaks the roots. When earliness is essential, as it 

 is in most southern districts that grow strawberries for 

 northern markets, these disadvantages of the southern 

 and southeastern exposures often are more than offset 

 by the few days that are gained in the season of ripening. 

 A gain in earliness of five days may be worth more than 

 the larger yield that might have been secured on a north- 

 ern or northwestern slope, or on bottom land. If the 

 rows are run east and west and ridged slightly towards 

 the south, earliness will be still more marked. Some- 

 times as much as a week is gained in this way. A south- 

 ern or southeastern exposure dries off quickly in the 

 morning and after a rain, so that picking can begin. 



Unless early ripening is the chief consideration, a 

 northern or northwestern exposure is preferable, since 

 it is cooler and more moist. Late varieties should be 

 planted on northern slopes or bottom land; usually 

 they blossom late and so are likely to escape frost; and 

 they ripen when upland soils often are beginning to get 

 dry. In Canada and northern United States it is desir- 

 able to plant where the snow clings throughout the winter, 

 and late into the spring. 



Advantages of flat land. 



However marked the advantages of sloping sites for 

 inland locations, there are more commercial strawberry 

 fields on level land than on slopes. The largest area of 

 commercial planting on the continent is on the coastal 

 plain of the Atlantic seaboard, extending from southern 



