Cultivation. 



applied with the least degree of trouble. The feeding-ground for the roots 

 can be kept mellow by horse-power ; if irrigation is adopted, the spaces 

 between the rows form the natural channels for the water. Chief of all, 

 it is the most successful way of fighting the white grub. These enemies 

 are not found scattered evenly through the soil, but abound in patches. 

 Here they can be dug out if not too numerous, and the plants allowed to 

 run and fill up the gaps. To all intents and purposes, the narrow row 

 system is hill culture with the evils of the latter subtracted. Even where 

 it is not carried out accurately, and many plants take root in the rows, 

 most of them will become large, strong and productive, under the hasty 

 culture which destroys the greater number of the side-runners. 



Where this system is fairly tried, the improvement in the quality, 

 size, and, therefore, measuring bulk of the crop, is 

 astonishing. This is especially true of some varie- 

 ties, like the Duchess, which, even in a matted bed, 

 tends to stool out into great bushy plants. 

 The cut shows how enormously productive 

 it becomes under this system. Doctor 

 Thurber, editor of the Amer- 

 ican Agriculturist, unhesi- 

 tatingly pronounced it the 

 most productive and best 

 early variety in my speci- 

 men-bed, containing fifty 



A Duchess Row and Berry. 



different kinds. If given a chance to develop its stooling-out qualities, it 

 is able to compete even with the Crescent and Wilson in productiveness. 

 At the same time, its fruit becomes large, and as regular in shape as if 

 IS 



