40 



used conveniently for protecting the fruit from sand. Sawdust 

 and tan-bark are only a little less objectionable than sand itself, 

 as the fine dust from either is sure to be blown and spattered 

 upon the berries, and will be found quite as difficult to remove. 

 Due caution should be exercised as to the amount of mulching 

 applied. Little more than enough to shade the foliage and 

 ground is required, while too much is liable to exclude air en- 

 tirely, and smother the plants. Straw not cleanly threshed, and 

 grass or sedge that have matured their seeds, will fill the rows 

 with plants as objectionable as any other weeds. I think hay 

 from the salt marshes preferable to any other material as a 

 mulch for the strawberry bed, as it is sufficiently heavy to retain 

 its place over and around the plants, it never fills the ground 

 with weeds, and the small per cent, of saline matter which it 

 contains is certainly no detriment to the plants or soil. 



Some have adopted the practice of throwing soil over straw- 

 berry vines with the spade or plow in autumn, removing the 

 covering early in spring : but this, while it may give protection, 

 does not answer any other purpose for which a mulch is applied. 

 It does not aid in keeping the fruit clean, but the opposite ; and 

 it has no tendency to prevent the ground from becoming parched 

 in time of drouth. A furrow each side of a row of strawberry 

 plants, opened late in autumn, so near as to cover the foliage, 

 must expose their roots to the action of frost, greatly to their 

 injury. 



Mulching has a tendency to retard the flowering of the plants, 

 and the ripening of the fruit ; but this, instead of being an ob- 

 jection, is sometimes an advantage, as a few days' delay in flow- 

 ering may prevent injury by late spring frosts. 



INSECTS. 

 The White Grub (Lachnosternafusca). 



This well known grub works beneath the surface, eating the 

 roots almost to the crown of the plant, thereby causing it to 

 wilt and die. When the matted bed or row system is practised, 

 their mischief is not so apparent, as the plants are crowded, and 

 the loss of a few of them is not noticed ; but when grown in 

 hills, every plant destroyed makes a bad break, which can be 



