246 Strawberry-Growing 



feet apart. The rows the second year run opposite from 

 their direction the previous season. Changing the direc- 

 tion of the rows keeps the ground more level and helps to 

 control weeds. This heroic thinning is not advisable 

 except on soils which produce an abundance of plants. 

 In the Hudson River district a narrow strip of the old row 

 is covered with furrows from each side. Five or six days 

 later the field is harrowed both ways. No plants can be 

 seen, but in three or four weeks most of them push through. 

 This method is cheaper and more effective than plowing 

 away from the rows and chopping out ; it kills the weeds 

 better and a full stand is assured. It may not succeed 

 on heavy land. 



If late summer is very dry, matted rows that have been 

 barred off and chopped out do not make a good stand. 

 This has forced the growers in some sections, particularly 

 in the lower Mississippi Valley, to abandon the method. 

 The middles are stirred with the double shovel or single 

 shovel, so as to destroy all alley plants and make room 

 for a few new plants ; and fresh soil is worked around the 

 old plants. If the season is wet, the bed gets too thick. 



The cost of renewing matted rows is from two dollars to 

 fifteen dollars an acre. A man with a one-horse plow 

 can bar off about three acres a day ; if a disk harrow is 

 used, six acres can be cut. Under average conditions, the 

 cost is about five dollars an acre. 



Renewing hills and hedge-rows. 



In hill training the problem is not to reduce the number 

 of plants but to readjust their position. Mowing or 

 topping are advisable in most cases and sometimes burn- 

 ing; but the most important work is to set the plants 

 deeper in the soil so as to favor the formation of new roots 



