THE COUNTRY HOME [chaptlk 



a hole about as large as the palm of your hand by 

 the side of each plant, once in two or three days, 

 and pour in a quart of water, slowly. Then scat- 

 ter over dry dirt to hold in the moisture. Two 

 such waterings will serve for a week. On no ac- 

 count whatever sprinkle a strawberry bed or water 

 the plants very slightly. Do it thoroughly, or let 

 it alone. The bed will get along far better without 

 you if you are unwilling to be thorough. 



Strawberry beds are generally renewed every 

 year — that is, new strawberry beds are set, while 

 the old one is allowed to do what it will for an ad- 

 ditional year. This is too much trouble for a 

 small country place, and it is unnecessary. A 

 strawberry bed, with proper care, can be made to 

 do good service for three years, or even more. Best 

 crops, of course, will appear on fresh beds, but the 

 old beds, carefully handled, will give good satis- 

 faction. In order to secure this perpetuity of a 

 bed you must keep the rows very narrow, by cut- 

 ting off the suckers; but about every second year 

 you must let the runners form midway rows, while 

 you fork out or plow out the old plants. My cus- 

 tom is, after a bed has borne two years, to set it to 

 currants or raspberries, without entirely uproot- 



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