CHAPTER XV. 



CULTIVATION. 



THE field for experiment in cultivation with different fertilizers, soils, 

 climates and varieties is indeed a wide one, and yet for practical 

 purposes the question is simple enough. 



There are three well-known systems of cultivation, each of which 

 has its advantages and disadvantages. The first is termed the " matted 

 bed system." Under this plan the ground between the rows is culti- 

 vated and kept clean during the spring and early summer. As soon, 

 however, as the new runners begin to push out vigorously, cultivation 

 ceases, or else, with the more thorough, the cultivator is narrowed 

 down till it stirs scarcely more than a foot of surface, care being taken 

 to go up one row and down another, so as always to draw the runners 

 one way. This prevents them from being tangled up and broken off. 

 By winter, the entire ground is covered with plants, which are pro- 

 tected, as will be explained further on. In the spring, the coarsest of 

 the covering is raked off, and between the rows is dug a space about 

 a foot or eighteen inches wide, which serves as a path for the pickers. 

 This path is often cheaply and quickly made by throwing two light 

 furrows together with a corn plow. Under this system, the first crop 

 is usually the best, and in strong lands adapted to grasses the beds 

 often become so foul that it does not pay to leave them to bear a 

 second year. If so, they are plowed under as soon as the fruit has 

 been gathered. More often two crops are taken, and then the land 



109 



