58 Strawberry-Growing 



twenty-five to one hundred bushels an acre, or used as 

 a top-dressing in the fall or early winter. The results 

 were variable, partly because a ton of wood ashes con- 

 tains about 600 pounds of lime. When ashes can be 

 bought at a reasonable figure they can be used to advan- 

 tage on all soils not well supplied with lime. Ashes should 

 not be mixed before being applied with any organic mate- 

 rial, such as hen manure, as they will liberate the nitrogen 

 in the manure. 



APPLYING FERTILIZERS 



When the plants grow a full year before bearing, most 

 of the fertilizer is applied the first year, in order to secure 

 strong crowns.^ Little, if any, fertilizer is applied the 

 second year, unless the field is to be renewed ; in which 

 case it is fertilized immediately after the surplus plants 

 have been removed. A large number of growers in the 

 Northern and Central states apply one-third of the fer- 

 tilizer before the plants are set, one-third during the 

 summer and one-third early the following spring, before 

 the plants have started to grow. The third that is used 

 during the growing season frequently is divided into 

 several applications ; small handfuls are dropped be- 

 tween the plants, at intervals of three to four weeks, and 

 hoed in. When the plants begin to slacken in growth, 

 they will be benefited by a fertilizer stimulant. 



In the North, many growers have had satisfactory 

 results from nitrogenous fertilizers applied very early in 

 the spring of the fruiting year. The gain is due mainly 

 to the larger size of the fruit; the number of berries is 



1 The sources of plant-food in commercial fertilizers and the home 

 mixing of fertilizers are discussed in "Fertilizers," by E. B. Voorhees, 

 Revised Edition, 1916. Rural Science Series. 



