24 The Strawberry Book. 



more out of the ground, and the earth has to be hoed up 

 to them. An annual manuring is of course needful. 



Strawberries may be kept in hills and made to do well 

 several years in succession ; but four years, or at the most 

 five, is probably as long a time as it pays to leave the beds 

 undisturbed. I have, indeed, heard of hills being kept 

 for twelve years ; but this must have been an excep- 

 tional case. 



It is the custom with many gardeners to mow down the 

 vines as soon as the fruit is picked, rake off, and clean the 

 bed, and then to dig in among the hills a good dressing 

 of manure. The foliage being cut off, and the roots 

 broken and greatly disturbed, the plant is stimulated by 

 the manure to go to work and repair the damage done, 

 which it effectually does by autumn, getting a new crown 

 of leaves and rilling the soil with roots. In this way it 

 may be said to practically become a new plant, and the 

 beds are thus kept along from year to year. 



CULTIVATION IN Rows. 



This is in effect a compromise between hill culture and 

 cultivation in broad beds. Rows of plants may be set in 

 the spring, three feet apart, with the plants nine inches 

 asunder in the rows ; and when the runners appear, the 

 first five or six are carefully laid in lengthwise of the row, 

 and the rest cut off as fast as they appear. In good soil 

 a thick, continuous, bushy row is the result, and some 

 varieties do very well when grown in this manner, partic- 

 ularly Lennig's White, which most admirable berry is 

 very unproductive in a matted bed. The soil on each 

 side of the row must be well mulched with straw or hay, 

 to keep the fruit off the dirt. 



A method of cultivation somewhat in vogue at the 

 West is, to plant the strawberry vines in hills, at a suita- 

 ble distance apart, and to put on in the fall a mulch of 

 three or four inches of hay. This hay is not removed in 



