12 The Strawberry Book. 



Nicaise, Admiral Dundas, &c., the ground can hardly be 

 made too deep or too rich. The latter varieties will fail 

 utterly where the Wilson or the Agriculturist would do 

 tolerably well. The President Wilder exhibits in many 

 respects its relationship to La Constante, and, like that 

 fine berry, it is fond of good feeding. 



While many kinds of strawberries will do well, al- 

 though poorly fed, there is hardly one that will not do 

 better on well-manured land ; and in general, we may 

 say, as in the case of other crops, the more manure the 

 more strawberries. 



The Germans are fond of saying of their vineyards, 

 " Well dug is half manured ; " but deep cultivation and 

 fine working the land for strawberries, although of ex- 

 ceeding value, will not take the place of manure. 



It is hard to name the fertilizer that cannot be used to 

 advantage, either in preparing the soil for a strawberry 

 plantation, or as a top-dressing for it. Stable manure, 

 compost, unleached ashes, superphosphate of lime, guano, 

 fish manure, and hen dung, may each and all be used 

 with profit. Market gardeners, who can command an 

 abundance of stable manure, generally give that the pref- 

 erence, using Peruvian guano, however, as a tonic, or 

 special means for bringing up to the mark any part of a 

 field that seems to be behind the rest in vigor or health. 

 Lime alone is considered by some injurious, but super- 

 phosphate of lime is certainly beneficial. Guano alone, 

 scattered broadcast half a dozen times through the sum- 

 mer, before a rain in each case if possible, using in all 

 eight hundred or a thousand pounds to the acre, produces 

 wonderful results, and may take the place of all other 

 manures. I have used it in this way with excellent 

 results. Guano composted in the fall, with say fifty times 

 its bulk of peat earth, and allowed to remain through the 

 winter in a pile, well covered with a few inches of soil, 

 makes, in the opinion of many, the best possible of all 

 composts. 



