The Strawberry Book. 19 



CHAPTER III. 



METHODS OF CULTIVATION. 



STRAWBERRIES are grown in various ways as regards 

 the number of plants originally set per acre, the manner 

 in which these are allowed to grow, and the length of 

 time the beds remain in bearing. They may be grown in 

 beds, in rows, in single hills, or in matted rows, and the 

 vines may be allowed to fruit three or four seasons, or 

 may be ploughed under as soon as one crop has been 

 picked. 



Mr. C. M. Hovey, in a practical article, remarks, " In 

 either way, with good judgment and proper treatment, 

 good crops may be produced ; and under ordinary garden 

 cultivation it is hardly possible, with a good soil and lib- 

 eral manuring, to prevent a successful result, whatever 

 may be the mode adopted. But in market culture on an 

 extended scale, where the greatest profit is, and ought to 

 be, the object, it is all important to follow that system that 

 will give the greatest paying crop, for it may be that two 

 thousand quarts to the acre under one mode of culture 

 will pay better than the same crop, or even three thousand 

 quarts, by another ; the cost of labor and the quality of 

 the fruit consuming the difference. It is, therefore, the 

 great object with market gardeners to find out that system 

 which gives the best paying results, and to follow it up." 



The very largest fruit in most cases brings the highest 

 price, and a market gardener is better off with five hun- 

 dred quarts of immense, choice berries, than with three 

 times that number of small ones. He will therefore study 



