20 PREPARATION OF THE SOIL. 



through a shelving of rock and earth a distance of 

 between four and five feet in length, in its search for 

 water. 



Inasmuch as the fruit is composed of so large a pro- 

 portion of potash, soda, and lime — sixty -two parts in 

 every hundred, as will be seen by the tables in this 

 work giving the analysis of the strawberry and plam 

 — we recommend next, that an application to the acre 

 be made of twenty to thirty bushels of unleached or 

 leached ashes, ten to twelve bushels of lime — either 

 stone or oystershell — with two or three bushels of salt, 

 which should be thoroughly mixed with the soil, if 

 possible some weeks before the plants are set out. It 

 should never be forgotten that a frequent breaking up 

 of the soil Avith the spade or fork before planting and 

 stirring it up with a long tooth rake afterwards as long 

 as it can be done without disturbing the roots ; laying 

 every part of it open to the action of frost, air, and 

 light, so that a portion of the soil, at least eight to 

 twelve per cent, is reduced to the finest powder, is in- 

 dispensable to the healthy action of the many thou- 

 sands, yea, millions of visible and invisible fibrous roots 

 of the strawberry ; neither can we too strongly insist 

 upon the fact that while the strawberry fruit loves a 

 pure finely pulverized virgin soil; it loathes the whole 

 class of rich stimulating manures. 



