58 Success with Small Fruits. 



Buckwheat is one of the most effective means of subduing and cleaning- 

 land, and two crops can be plowed under in a single summer. Last spring 

 I had some very stiff marsh sod turned over and sown with buckwheat, 

 which, in our hurry, was not plowed under until considerable of the seed 

 ripened and fell. A second crop from this came up at once, and was 

 plowed under when coming into blossom, as the first should have been. 

 The straw, in its succulent state, decayed in a few days, and by autumn 

 my rough marsh sod was light, rich and mellow as a garden, ready for 

 anything. 



If it should happen that the land designed for strawberries was in clover, 

 it would make an admirable fertilizer if turned under while still green, and 

 I think its use for this purpose would pay better than cutting it for hay, 

 even though there is no better. Indeed, were I about to put any sod 

 land, that was not very stiff and unsubdued, into small fruits, I would wait 

 till whatever herbage covered the ground was just coming into flower, and 

 then turn it under. The earlier growth that precedes the formation of 

 seed does not tax the soil much, but draws its substance largely from the 

 atmosphere, and when returned to the earth while full of juices, is valuable. 

 In our latitude, this can usually be done by the middle of June, and if on 

 this sod buckwheat is sown at once, it will hasten the decay, loosen and 

 lighten the soil in its growth, and in a few weeks be ready itself to increase 

 the fertility of the field by being plowed under. In regions where farm- 

 yard manure and other fertilizers are scarce and high, this plowing under 

 of green crops is one of the most effective ways both of enriching and pre- 

 paring the land ; and if the reader has no severer labors to perform than 

 this, he may well congratulate himself. 



But let him not be premature in his self-felicitation, for he may find in 

 his sod ground, especially if it be old meadow land, an obstacle worse than 

 stumps and stones the Lachnosterna fusca. 



This portentous name may well inspire dread, for the thing itself can 

 realize one's worst fears. The deep, moist loam which we are considering 

 is the favorite haunt of this hateful little monster, and he who does not find 

 it lying in wait when turning up land that has been long in sod, may deem 

 himself lucky. The reader need not draw a sigh of relief when I tell him 

 that I mean merely the " white grub," the larva of the May-beetle or June- 

 bug, that so disturbs our slumbers in early summer by its sonorous hum 

 and aimless bumping against the wall. This white grub, which the farm- 

 ers often call the " potato worm," is, in this region, the strawberry's most 

 formidable foe, and, by devouring the roots, will often destroy acres of 

 plants. If the plow turns up these ugly customers in large numbers, the 



