86 A B C OF STRAWBERRY CULTURE. 



crop in that same dry year of 1887, and how large a crop he 

 got, and compare it with Mr. Q 's that was saved by irrigation. 

 The years 1886 and 1887 were each very dry seasons in Wiscon- 

 sin so dry that ordinary growers met with almost entire fail- 

 ure. Mr. S. raised, the first year, over 250 bushels of strawber- 

 ries per acre, and the next year 223. This was without any wa- 

 tering I might almost say without any rain. Now, how did 

 he do it? He says that drainage was at the foundation, and 

 plenty of manure and tillage did the rest. (There was one oth- 

 er important point, however, which I will try to speak of again; 

 viz., naturally moist soil plenty of water not far down.) I 

 have told you how he mulches and takes off the straw or hay 

 in the spring, and keeps the surface, where exposed, slightly 

 mellowed with hoes, or, rather, mellowed to a slight depth. In 

 a dry year he goes over the patch three times with hoes, the 

 last time just before beginning to pick the berries. Thus he 

 forms a mulch on the surface, which greatly checks evapora- 

 tion. Mr. Smith says he thinks this mulch of stirred soil pro- 

 tected the ground much more perfectly than any straw mulch 

 could have done. Now, practically, for large fields, tillage 

 makes the cheapest and best mulch, perhaps, as far as tillage 

 can be used ; but I should like to have had two or three rows 

 of Mr. Smith's berries covered among the plants all through, 

 as well as between the rows, with straw, the same as mine are, 

 and know the result. 



That noted veteran, J. J. Thomas, says that stirred soil is 

 the best possible mulch for newly set trees. N. Ohmer tells of 

 selling $3000 worth of raspberries from four acres, when his 

 neighbors' berries all dried up on the bushes. A slight mulch, 

 made with a cultivator kept constantly moving, did it. But 

 would not straw have done it just as well ? Alas ! we do not 

 just exactly know. Another well-known authority in the 

 Northwest, Mr. C. H. Hamilton, told me that, in that terribly 

 dry year of 1886, berry-growers in his vicinity reaped rewards 

 just in proportion as they kept the cultivator and hoe moving, 



