A B C OF STRAWBERRY CULTURE. 65 



setting might have answered then ; but that year I know some 

 large growers lost half their plants. It won't do to take the 

 chance of half doing any part of our work. Well, the friend 

 last spoken of used this fact, that berries would grow when 

 thus carelessly treated, as an argument to prove that it was 

 useless to spend so much time in keeping the roots wet and set- 

 ting out so carefully. He said it was a pretty hard matter to 

 kill a strawberry-plant. We have too many men of that sort, 

 both among horticulturists and agriculturists. If such can 

 make a living in their line, reader, rest assured that there is a 

 good profit for you in thorough work. 



Mr. C. A. Green says : " But let me tell you that it is work 

 that brings the berries ; work, I say, and hard work too, tug- 

 ging and sweating. Don't take stock in those poetry fellows. 

 Don't get the notion that a big crop of berries, growing as rank 

 as horseradish, without gaps along the rows, came there by 

 whistling for them. Just bet your life that the man who owns 

 that patch nearly broke his back planting and weeding and 

 hoeing ; and if he hadn't he would not get any profit out of 

 them." These are the words of one of our most successful 

 horticulturists. 



In the way of tillage implements, we use the Planet Jr. 

 one-horse cultivator, with narrow 1^-inch teeth on it, and a 

 wheel to keep it from going too deep. This is a good tool ; but 

 we found one trouble which doubtless many growers have ex- 

 perienced. The teeth, although narrow, would throw some 

 dirt over the leaves of the plants, if we ran very near, and even 

 on the crowns. So we had to be satisfied with cultivating about 

 two-thirds of the land, and hand-hoeing the rest. By going 

 very slowly with the cultivator (which we do not like), and 

 stopping to uncover plants occasionally, we might cultivate 

 three-fourths of the land. Well, this sort of work was not sat- 

 isfactory. It occurred to me that small harrow-teeth would 

 throw no dirt, and would run close to the plant, pushing the 

 leaves aside instead of covering them, thus leaving considera- 



