158 SUCCESSFUL FRUIT CULTURE 



close together, thus serving to protect one another, and, 

 the ground being well filled with roots, there is less 

 danger of their being heaved out by frost. The 

 same heavy covering during the winter will be needed 

 as with the hill system, taking care not to cover the 

 crowns too deeply. In Figure 84 the old plants are 

 represented by o, the runners by x. 



Wide Matted Row This consists in setting the 

 plants in rows three, four or five feet apart, according 

 to the richness of the soil, and one to two feet in the 



Fig. 85-Strawberry Field with Wide Matted Rows 



rows, and letting the runners grow over the space be- 

 tween the rows from four to six inches apart, thus 

 making beds of fruiting plants eighteen inches to three 

 feet wide. Figure 85 shows strawberry field of A. A. 

 Marshall of Fitchburg, Mass., set 4x5 feet, and run into 

 beds three feet wide; irrigation pipes are seen in the 

 foreground. Some growers place the runners the proper 

 distance apart as they grow, and others let the bed be 

 covered in a natural way and then dig out the surplus 

 plants in the fall, the last of August or early September. 

 The first plan, however, is the better, as then each 



