52 Success with Small Fruits. 



" Ground that is apt to get very dry from the effects of only ten days' or 

 a fortnight's drought is not suitable, on account of the enormous quantity of water 

 that will be necessary ; and if once the plants begin to flag for want of moisture, 

 the crop is all but lost. A soil that is naturally somewhat moist, but not too wet, 

 answers well ; and where the land has admitted of irrigation, we have seen heavy 

 crops produced every year." 



If this be true in England, with its humid climate, how much more 

 emphatically should we state the importance of this requirement in our 

 land of long droughts and scorching suns. 



Moisture, then, is the strawberry's first and chief need. Without it, 

 the best fertilizers become injurious rather than helpful. Therefore, 

 in the preparation of the soil and its subsequent cultivation, there should 

 be a constant effort to secure and maintain moisture, and the failure to 

 do this is the chief cause of meager crops. And yet, very probably, the 

 first step absolutely necessary to accomplish this will be a thorough 

 system of underdrainage. I have spent hundreds of dollars in such labors, 

 and it was as truly my object to enable the ground to endure drought 

 as to escape undue wetness. Let it be understood that it is moist and 

 not wet land that the strawberry requires. If water stands or stagnates 

 upon or a little below the surface, the soil becomes sour, heavy, lifeless ; 

 and, if clay is present, it will bake like pottery in dry weather and suggest 

 the Slough of Despond in wet. Disappointment, failure and miasma are 

 the certain products of such unregenerate regions, but, as is often the case 

 with repressed and troublesome people, the evil traits of such soils result 

 from a lack of balance, and a perversion of what is good. 



The underdrain restores the proper equilibrium ; the brush-hook and 

 axe cut away the rank unwholesome growth which thrives best in abnor- 

 mal conditions. Sun, air and purifying frosts mellow and sweeten the 

 damp, heavy, malarious ground, as the plowshare lift's it out of its low 

 estate. A swamp, or any approach to one, is like a New York tenement 

 house district, and requires analogous treatment. 



If, however, we have mellow upland with natural drainage, let us first 

 put that in order that we may have a remunerative crop as soon as possi- 

 ble. In suggesting, therefore, the best methods of preparing and enriching 

 the ground, I will begin by considering soils that are already in the most 

 favorable conditions, and that require the least labor and outlay. Man 

 received his most essential agricultural instruction in the opening chapter 

 of Genesis, wherein he is commanded to " subdue the earth." Even the 

 mellow Western prairie is at first a wild, untamed thing that must be 

 subdued. This is often a simple process, and in our gardens and the 



