22 The Strawberry Book. 



in July. The same number of weeds would have ruined 

 the bed if it had been kept another year. 



Third. The land that bears strawberries one year be- 

 ing planted with some other crop, generally potatoes the 

 next, is in most excellent condition for a new plantation 

 of strawberries in the third season, it having been found 

 much better not to take two crops of strawberries in suc- 

 cession from the same field. 



This is an old English method, but has been revived, 

 and carried to the highest perfection, in this country. 



The growers in Belmont, near Boston, have employed 

 this method, and obtained astonishing results with Hov- 

 ey's Seedling, using Brighton Pine, or sometimes Boston 

 Pine, as a fertilizer. From four thousand to five thousand 

 quarts per acre is a fair average crop, some exceptional 

 instances showing much higher figures. The productive- 

 ness of a variety, I may here remark, must never be esti- 

 mated on the basis of the yield obtained from a small 

 garden bed in exceptionally favored circumstances ; for if 

 this method were fair, stories approaching the marvellous 

 might be told of some strawberries. If I do not mistake, 

 Mr. C. M. Hovey says that a bed of his Seedling, twelve 

 feet by two and a half, has borne twelve quarts in one 

 season. This would be more than seventeen thousand 

 quarts to the acre a result never yet attained on a large 

 scale. 



I have no exact data at command for fixing the average 

 yield of English varieties at home, but I find that a prod- 

 uct on a small scale, at the rate of thirty-eight hundred 

 quarts to the acre, is thought worthy of being chronicled, 

 the varieties being the British Queen and Keens' Seedling. 



HILL CULTURE. 



As I have .remarked, the foreign varieties, such as the 

 Jucunda and the Triomphe de Gand, make high, promi- 

 nent crowns, and give much better returns when raised in 



