THE COUNTRY HOME [chapter 



thoroughly worked, and very strong. Really good 

 vegetable soil, in which can grow the best potatoes, 

 onions, and beets, is good strawberry soil. I should 

 lay out my bed with relation to adjacent crops, so 

 that the horse-cultivator can do the work at the 

 same time that it goes through the raspberry or 

 other small-fruit rows. 



If the soil needs fertilizing, apply the most com- 

 pletely decomposed barnyard manure, with which 

 may be mixed a good proportion of ashes. If the 

 ground is inclined to be stiff you may work in a 

 large amount of coal ashes from anthracite coal. 

 These loosen the clay soil, and allow the absorp- 

 tion of nitrogen. Where commercial fertilizer is 

 used, apply, in the fall, kainit and phosphates. The 

 following spring apply nitrate of soda — before the 

 blossoms have appeared, and when the leaves are 

 dry. One of the Experiment Stations gives the 

 following formula: Cottonseed meal, five hundred 

 pounds; acid phosphate, one thousand pounds; 

 muriate of potash, two hundred and fifty pounds 

 per acre. You can easily estimate the proportion 

 needed for your small bed. This formula should 

 be applied late in the summer or late in the fall. 

 Nitrate of soda can be applied in the spring, in con- 



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