206 A B C OF STRAWBERRY CULTURE. 



place, there are some horse-stables where they make a great 

 quantity of loose strawy manure. It is so much straw and so 

 little manure that I pay only from 50 to 75 cts. a load, and this 

 for a load that we bring on our hay-rack. Well, I thought I 

 would use this for mulching to keep the berries off the ground. 

 You know '-ow the frost cut them off, and just about spoiled 

 the Jessies with some others, and then the hot drouth diminish- 

 ed and dried up what few berries were left. Well, we had pret- 

 ty much given up getting any strawberries worth mentioning ; 

 but a pretty good rain came on the evening of the 19th, and 

 lasted during the forenoon of the next day ; and almost as soon 

 as the rain was over I was happily surprised to see not only the 

 bright new foliage, but stems of berries sticking up here and 

 there that had just about doubled in size during the rain ; that 

 is, they were twice the size they would have been had it not 

 been for the rain and manure Well, now. that acre of straw- 

 berries is bearing considerable nice fruit, and making plants at 

 a tremendous rate, under the influence of the straw mulching 

 and the manure. One objection to stable-manure has been', you 

 know, weed seeds ; but if we are going to plow the patch under 

 so soon, who cares for the weeds? The more they come, the 

 better. I propose now to let the whole thing be until both 

 weeds and plants get at their best, then we will take out the 

 best of the plants, with a lump of dirt adhering, and make a 

 new plantation right beside the old one. By this time the 

 weeds will be up so as to be worth something to plow under ; 

 and thus we shall have a splendid piece of ground for buck- 

 wheat and crimson clover, as mentioned in the last issue, or 

 for any other late crop. 



A VISIT AMONG THE STRAWBERRY GROWERS. 



Saturday afternoon, June 15, I started out to see what my 

 neighbors were doing in the height of the berry season. About 

 ten miles northeast of Medina I found the Lawnsdale fruit- 

 farm, on ground high enough so they were affected by the frost 

 but little compared with our own locality. Friend Williams, 

 the proprietor, raises strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, 

 gooseberries, and currants, with potatoes for filling in and to 

 make a sort of rotation of crops. He has about 30 acres of 

 land, and it was really a refreshing sight to behold such a ber- 

 ry-farm right in the midst of a locality where every thing else 

 is devoted to regular farming and stock-raising on a heavy clay 

 soil. 



On a northern slope near the road I found about an acre of 



