140 SUCCESS WITH SMALL FRUITS. 



fmit has been gathered. More often two crops are taken, 

 and then the land is put in some other crop for a year or 

 two before being planted with strawberries again. This 

 rude, inexpensive system is perhaps more followed than any 

 other. It is best adapted to light soils and cheap lands. 

 Where an abundance of cool fertilizers has been used, or the 

 ground has been generously prepared with green crops, 

 plowed under, the yield is often large and profitable. But 

 as often it is quite the reverse, especially if the season 

 proves dry and hot. Usually, plants sodded together can- 

 not mature fine fmit, especially after they have exhausted 

 half their vitality in running. In clayey loams, the surface 

 in the matted rows becomes as hard as a brick. Light 

 showers make little impression on it, and the fruit often 

 dries upon the vines. Remembering that the strawberry's 

 chief need is moisture, it will be seen that it can scarcely be 

 maintained in a hard-matted sod. Under this system the 

 fruit is small at best, and it all matures together. If 

 adopted in the garden, the family has but a few days of 

 berries instead of a few weeks. The marketman may find 

 his whole crop ripening at a time of over-supply, and his 

 small berries may scarcely pay for picking. To many of 

 this class the cheapness of the system will so commend 

 itself that they will continue to practise it until some enter- 

 prising neighbor teaches them better, by his larger cash 

 returns. In the garden, however, it is the most expensive 

 method. When the plants are sodded together, the hoe 

 and fork cannot be used. The whole space must be 

 weeded by hand, and there are some pests whose roots 

 interlace horizontally above and below the ground, and 

 which cannot be eradicated from the matted rows. Too 

 often, therefore, even in the neatest garden, the strawberry 

 bed is the place where vegetable evil triumphs. 



