CHAPTER XV. 



CULTIVATION. 



'T^HE field for experiment in cultivation with different 

 fertilizers, soils, climates, and varieties is indeed a 

 wide one, and yet for practical purposes the question is 

 simple enough. 



There are three well-known systems of cultivation, each 

 of which has its advantages and disadvantages. The first 

 is termed the " matted bed system." Under this plan the 

 ground between the rows is cultivated and kept clean dur- 

 ing the spring and early summer. As soon, however, as the 

 new runners begin to push out vigorously, cultivation ceases, 

 or else, with the more thorough, the cultivator is narrowed 

 down till it stirs scarcely more than a foot of surface, care 

 being taken to go up one row and down another, so as al- 

 ways to draw the runners one way. This prevents them 

 from being tangled up and broken off. By winter, the 

 entire ground is covered with plants, which are protected 

 as will be explained further on. In the spring the coarsest 

 of the covering is raked off, and between the rows is dug a 

 space about a foot or eighteen inches wide, which serves as a 

 path for the pickers. This path is often cheaply and quickly 

 made by throwing two light furrows together with a com 

 plow. Under this system, the first crop is usually the best, 

 and in strong lands adapted to grasses the beds often be- 

 come so foul that it does not pay to leave them to bear a 

 second year. If so, they are plowed under as soon as the 



