PREPARING AND ENRICHING THE SOIL. 6/ 



" Ground that is apt to get very dry from the effects of only 

 ten days' or a fortnight's drought is not suitable, on account of 

 the enormous quantity of water that will be necessary ; and if 

 once the plants begin to flag for want of moisture, the crop is 

 all but lost. A soil that is naturally somewhat moist, but not 

 too wet, answers well ; and where the land has admitted of irri- 

 gation, we have seen heavy crops produced every year." 



If this be true in England, with its humid climate, how 

 much more emphatically should we state the importance of 

 this requirement in our land of long droughts and scorching 

 suns. 



Moisture, then, is the strawberry's first and chief need. 

 Without it, the best fertilizers become injurious rather than 

 helpful. Therefore, in the preparation of the soil and its 

 subsequent cultivation, there should be a constant effort to 

 secure and maintain moisture, and the failure to do this is 

 the chief cause of meagre crops. And yet, very probably, 

 the first step absolutely necessary to accomplish this will be 

 a thorough system of underdrainage. I have spent hun- 

 dreds of dollars in such labors, and it was as truly my ob- 

 ject to enable the ground to endure drought as to escape 

 undue wetness. Let it be understood that it is inoist and 

 not wet land that the strawberry requires. If water stands 

 or stagnates upon or a little below the surface, the soil be- 

 comes sour, heavy, lifeless ; and if clay is present, it will 

 bake like pottery in dry weather, and suggest the Slough of 

 Despond in wet. Disappointment, failure, and miasma are 

 the certain products of such unregenerate regions, but, as is 

 often the case with repressed and troublesome people, the 

 evil traits of such soils result from a lack of balance, and a 

 perversion of vv-hat is good. 



The underdrain restores the proper equilibrium ; the 

 brush-hook and axe cut away the rank unwholesome growth 



