40 ABC OF STRAWBERRY CUI/TURE. 



pushing their way up through the manure, or the straw either. 

 This help will consist in simply opening or removing the cov- 

 ering a little, where you may see a plant raising it up instead 

 of coming through. This manure, or straw, on the surface, 

 will serve two important ends. First, it will keep the fruit 

 clean. Soil is a good thing, but I do not like to eat it directly. 

 Sugar is preferable on berries. Mulched as I have directed, 

 your berries should be always perfectly clean ; the rain can not 

 spatter any dirt on them. To be sure, the berries can be wash- 

 ed ; but the best way is to fix it so they can not get dirty. And 

 then, again, if it is a dry year it will keep the ground more 

 moist, and thus increase the crop. Perhaps you may think 

 that manure would not be just the proper thing for a mulch to 

 keep berries clean. But all filthiness will be Mashed out by 

 the rains long before the berries are ripe Any weeds that may 

 start in the bed in the spring may be pulled up or cut off. 

 There should not be many if the tillage the season before wes 

 thorough.* 



*This matter of getting the seeds of weeds into the strawberry-patch 

 along with mulching has made so much trouble that a great variety of 

 material has been used in place of straw and strawy manure. Friend Ter- 

 ry has alluded to marsh hay. We have had very good success with corn- 

 stalks. In this case the mulching was not removed in the spring at all. 

 The berry-plants climbed up through it. Some strawberry-growers use 

 green corn fodder. The corn is sown broadcast close to the patch, so as to 



be just right to cut and spread between the rows just as the fruit is begin- 

 ning to ripen. But by far the most satisfactory material we have ever 

 used is dry potato-tops. When you dig your potatoes, rake up the vines 

 and put them in heaps somewhere out of the wav and near the strawber- 

 ry-patch. As soon as the ground freezes, cover the whole bed with these 

 dried-up potato-vines as thickly as you choose. They will not smother the 

 strawberries, and they contain no weed seeds, and they need not be re- 

 moved in the spring, for the plants will grow up through them. If put 

 on just right you can see the green foliage down through the potato top 

 mulching all winter long. They hold the snow better than any thing else 

 I know of, and they never settle down so compact as to smo'her the plants 



and make them rot. In our potato-book you will see mention made of a 

 late s'rong-growing potato called the Craig. I often find vii 

 enough late in the fall to pull them up and wind them about my necl 



while the other end remains in the ground. This potato makes a very 

 large amount of tops. After digging they can be raked up with a horse- 

 rake, and handled with a pitchfork, so it is very little trouble to put them 

 on strawberries. Potato-tops, when they decay, furnish a large amount of 

 potash, and this just suits the strawberry. A. I. R. 



