ABC OF STRAWBERRY CULTURE. 33 



ouce." Yes, and it is pleasanter too. The idea is, of course, 

 that, instead of waiting till the weeds get well started, and 

 working hard to hoe them up once, you just rapidly run over 

 the mellow surface two or three times, simply stirring it so no 

 weeds cau grow at all. This is the way we grow potatoes ; it 

 is the only correct way to farm, now, and it is just the way to 

 grow strawberries. Read this over and over ; learn it by heart. 

 It will help if the land set out in strawberry -plants was in 

 corn or potatoes or garden-truck the year previous, or corn one 

 year and potatoes the next, and was kept entirely free from 

 weeds. But even if the land is full of foul weed-seeds you can 

 keep them down quite readily if you, never let them get started 

 at all. Cultivate the ground once a week or oftener. I would 

 not go more than one inch deep within 6 inches of the plants, 

 and then in hoeing the little strip that is left, that you can not 

 cultivate, I would not hoe more than half an inch deep right 

 around the plants. I do not want to disturb them at all just 

 mellow the immediate surface, and make it fine, and prevent 

 any weeds from coming up. I set a somewhat careless man to 

 hoeing my strawberries once, and he did great damage by hoe- 

 ing same two inches deep, and breaking up the earth around 

 the roots too much. Do not pull any earth up around the 

 plants when hoeing, but leave it level all the season, just as it 

 was when you finished setting them out. With a little hilling 

 up, the rains may wash the earth over the crowns and rot them 

 and kill the plants My own experience is that a pronged hoe 

 is the best tool for stirring the soil between the plants that the 

 cultivator does not reach. This is just like a hoe, only there 

 are four or five tines in the place of the blade of the hoe. The 

 potato hook that some use to dig potatoes with is practically 

 the same thing. There is no better tool to stir soil about plants 

 with to keep weeds from starting and to break the crust, or 

 keep it from forming. This hoe is nice to use among the flow- 

 ers, etc., too. Walking backward I can stir the little strip be- 

 tween and around strawberry-plants very rapidly. But this is 



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