94 SUCCESS WITH SMALL FRUITS. 



but in most instances, by a judicious use of the means sug- 

 gested, they can be made to produce heavy and long- 

 continued crops of the largest fruit. 



These same principles apply to the small garden-plot as 

 well as to the acre. Instead of carting off weeds, old pea- 

 vines, etc., dig them under evenly over the entire space, 

 when possible. Enrich with warm, light fertilizers, and if 

 a good heavy coat of hot strawy manure is trenched in the 

 heaviest, stickiest clay, in October or November, straw- 

 berries or anything else can be planted the following spring. 

 The gardener who thus expends a little thought and far- 

 sighted labor will at last secure results that will surpass his 

 most sanguine hopes, and that, too, from land that would 

 othenvise be as hard as Pharaoh's heart. 



Before passing from this soil to that of an opposite char- 

 acter, let me add a few words of caution. Clay land should 

 never be stirred when either very wet or very dry, or else a 

 lumpy condition results that injures it for years. It should 

 be plowed or dug only when it crumbles. When the soil 

 is sticky, or turns up in great hard lumps, let it alone. The 

 more haste the worst speed. 



Again, the practice of fall plowing, so very beneficial in 

 latitudes where frosts are severe and long continued, is just 

 the reverse in the far South. There our snow is rain, and 

 the upturned furrows are washed down into a smooth, sticky 

 mass by the winter storms. On steep hillsides, much of the 

 soil would ooze away with every rain, or slide down hill en 

 masse. In the South, therefore, unless a clay soil is to be 

 planted at once, it must not be disturbed in the fall, and it 

 is well if it can be protected by stubble or litter, which 

 shields it from the direct contact of the rain and from the 

 sun's rays. But cow-peas, or any other rank-growing green 

 crop adapted to the locality, is as useful to Southern clay as 



