CHAPTER IX. 



THE STRAWBERRY. 



IN the cultivation of this early and delicious fruit, the requisites for 

 success are chiefly : 



1. A good, deep, rich soil. 



2. Clean cultivation between the rows. 



3. A renewal by planting as often as once in three years. 



4. Selection of suitable varieties. 



Soil, Any deep, rich soil, which will afford fine crops of corn and 

 potatoes, is well adapted to the cultivation of the Strawberry. To 

 be uniformly productive, it must be deeply trenched, either by the 

 spade or by double ploughing, and weii enriched with manure. 

 Fine crops, it is true, may be obtained without trenching, but not in 

 such excellence, profusion, or certainty, in all seasons. It rarely, 

 but sometimes happens that the soil is made too rich. The usual 

 error is the reverse. 



Clean cultivation is a most essential requisite. On a large scale, 

 it may be very cheaply accomplished by a horse and cultivator, the 

 rows being about three feet apart, and the plants a foot to a foot and 

 a half in the rows. The runners must be kept down by hoeing, or 

 treated precisely as weeds; and unless the soil is already quite 

 fertile, a dressing of manure should be applied each autumn, which 

 will protect the roots, soak into the soil, and may be turned under 

 in spring. A light top-dressing of leached ashes is highly benefi- 

 cial to strawberry beds. 



Some varieties, as the Large Early Scarlet and Dundee, will often 

 bear profusely for a single season, even when the plants run thickly 

 together ; others, and more particularly the larger sorts, must be 

 cleared of runners and kept well cultivated, or they will always bear 

 poorly. 



