14 A B C OF STRAWBERRY CULTURE. 



the soil. Some will do best on a particular kind of soil, and 

 some on another. I should rather prefer what would be called 

 a good potato soil, a happy medium, about half way between 

 sand and clay. Moist soil is good, but not wet soil. If it is 

 wet it should be tile-drained. Just what is best is a well-drain- 

 ed (naturally or with tiles) but still moist piece of land. Again, 

 it should be upland, not lowland, because late spring frosts 

 will be heavier on the latter. A frost, when the berries are in 

 bloom, does much damage ; hence, select land where there will 

 be as little chance as possible of loss in this direction. It is 

 pretty hard to work a whole year over a bed and keep them in 

 perfect order, and then have the frost take a large part of the 

 fruit in a single night. 



Of course, I am telling you what is best all around ; but if 

 much is wrong for your location, set out some berries. You 

 can manage to grow enough for your own use some way ; so, 

 do not despair, but just come as near to the right as you can. 

 I would not set strawberries between rows of raspberries or 

 other small fruit in the fruit-garden. We tried it. The rasp- 

 berries, blackberries, etc., sent their roots under the strawber- 

 ries and robbed them of fertility and moisture ; and when we 

 were picking in the strawberries we packed the ground, walk- 

 ing back and forth so much, greatly to the injury of the other 

 small fruits. If you set strawberries in the garden, put them 

 all in a block by themselves. The accompanying figure shows 

 a plan for a farmer's garden, that would suit me. I have called 

 it " the home acre ; " and how much more homelike and en- 

 joyable would thousands of farms be if they had such an acre, 

 more or less, well started and well cared for ! 



Suppose, to start with, that 1 is set out with strawberries, 

 and 2 and 3 are used for garden-stuff. The next spring you set 

 out a new bed of strawberries in 2, and use 3 and 4 for garden. 

 A year later you set out strawberries in 3, and have your gar- 

 den on 1 and 4, and so on, rotating on these 4 strips. This is 

 supposing you keep a bed in bearing but one year, which I 



