A B C OF STRAWBERRY CULTURE. 175 



the plants stand when they are growing nicely, before putting 

 out any runners : 



X- # *# -X--X- # & # * 



FIG. 2. PLANTS AFTER THEY ARE SET OUT. 



Now a word about cultivating. The broad spaces, or the 

 paths a yard wide, of course can be cultivated without any 

 trouble ; and if you set your plants with a spade, on the plan 

 given by Dan White, you can run the cultivator within an inch 

 of the plants on each side, without injuring them. As the rows 

 between the plants are only 18 inches wide, you will probably 

 do them easiest with a wheel-hoe. Friend Young uses a wheel 

 scuffle-hoe. With a horse trained to the business, and a culti- 

 vator that will shut up narrow, I have sometimes done quite a 

 good job of cultivating where plants were 18 inches apart. 

 Please notice, before the plants have put out any runners, you 

 can, with the horse - cultivator and the hand-cultivator, go 

 through them both ways, so as to cultivate close up to each 

 plant on four sides. By this means an acre of plants can be 

 kept almost perfectly clean with modern cultivators and noth 

 ing else. Not only this, we can break the crust after every 

 rain so quickly and so easily that we can afford to keep the 

 ground loose and mellow, banishimg all weeds at the same 

 time that we do the stirring ; and there has never been any 

 thing invented, and in my opinion there nevtr will be, to get 

 great crops of any sort of fruit like this mellow, soft loose soil. 

 So far so good ; but when the runners put out and begin to take 

 root, what then ? Here is what I learned of friend Young's in- 

 vention : No plants are allowed to take root in the broad path 

 3 feet wide that is, not the first season, any way ; but when 

 the runners are just right, and begin to take root, your man or 

 boy is taken into the patch with a trowel, and told to _ . a g< od 

 plant about half way between all the old plants and one in the 

 center of the square. After he has done this he is to cut off all 

 the others. Let us have another diagram to make this plain. 

 We have placed the stars a little further apart, s > you can see 

 better what you are doing. 



