A B C OF STRAWBERRY CULTURE. 67 



side of each row. After a hard rain, which packs the ground so 

 a harrow would hardly touch it, we use the cultivator first, not 

 running very close to the plants, and then finish up by going 

 over again with the harrow, and then continue the use of the 

 harrow until another hard rain packs the soil. I suppose we 

 used that harrow about twice a week last season, on an average. 

 We put it on an old cultivator-frame and left it on. 



The Iron Age cultivator and harrow combined is a good 

 tool in the strawberry-patch, if you raise enough to need a 

 special tool. I can go within an inch of plants with this and 

 throw no earth on leaves. 



For the hoeing we use a pronged or common hoe, like most 

 other growers, except after the runners partly cover the ground. 

 Then we use, to work in between them, to stir the surface in 

 little places where a common hoe would not go in handily, a 

 little V-shaped hoe. Needing two one day, my son made a 

 second one by nailing an old mowing-machine section (a large 

 one) on to the end of a broom handle, so the point would be 

 down at right angles to the handle. The hoe we bought was 

 not hung right for this business. We heated the shank and 

 bent the V-shaped blade down until it stood about at right an- 

 gles with the handle. Then we could use the point or sides to 

 hoe in among the runners, nicely. 



This sort of hoeing may not pay always, at least I presume 

 few would take the trouble to do it. The writer is called some- 

 thing of a crank on tillage. Well, he likes to see every thing 

 just do its best ; and you know one can grow $50 worth of 

 strawberries on half an acre, or $500 worth, or anywhere along 

 between (there is a little luck about the matter, however), ac- 

 cording as he does his part. And in this matter of a surface 

 kept mellow all the time lies part of the secret of a great yield. 



A farmer was asking at an institute in Pennsylvania, last 

 winter, why his berries did not do better. My old friend Sisson, 

 who has sold over a thousand dollars' worth of strawberries 

 from an acre, inquired all about how he cared for them ; and 



