Strawberry Culture 27 



way weakened the plant. The runner is produced at the ex- 

 pense of the plant until it becomes rooted and is self-supporting. 

 Various contrivances have been invented to do this work with 

 little labor, but most of them are faulty in one or more ways: 

 they fail to cut the runners early enough, or they cut some of 

 the leaves. A boy with a sharp knife can do the work well. 



Winter Protection 



Strawberry plants are liable to be injured in the winter by 

 alternate freezing and thawing. This renders a covering of some 

 kind necessary in many cases. If the soil be of such a character 

 as to hold water, the danger is increased. The injury comes in 

 this way: The water in the soil in being changed into ice ex- 

 pands about one-tenth, requiring that much more room. This 

 expansion is mainly upwards, and the frozen surface carries up 

 whatever may be in its grasp fenceposts, stones, garden stakes 

 and plants. When the soil thaws it settles back in its place, 

 but the plants do not. The next freezing repeats the process, 

 raising the plant a little higher. This is liable to occur at any 

 time between October and April, and it is just as injurious in 

 November as in March. We have in this case the soil furnish- 

 ing anchorage to hold the plant in its place, and the freezing to 

 pull it up by the roots. We have all seen strawberry plants, 

 clover and even fence posts lifted six or eight inches in a single 

 winter. If the soil is dry, or nearly so, there is no expansion 

 no raising up of the surface. A firm soil that holds but little 

 water, and a sloping soil that furnishes good surface drainage 

 expand comparatively little. The same may be said of any 

 soil through which water percolates rapidly, if it is well under- 



