132 Success with Small Fruits. 



to stir the soil deeply without moving it or covering the plants. These 

 cultivators are followed by women, with light, sharp hoes, who cut away 

 the few weeds left between the plants. They handle these tools so 

 deftly that scarcely any weeding is left to be done by hand ; for, by a 

 rapid encircling stroke, they cut within a half-inch of the plant. For 

 several years past, I have urged upon Mr. Young the advantage of 

 the narrow row system, and his own experience has led him to adopt 

 it. He is now able to keep his immense farm free of weeds chiefly 

 by mule labor, whereas, in his old system of matted row culture it was 

 impossible to keep down the grass, or prevent the ground from becoming 

 hard and dry. He now restricts his plants to hills or "stools," from 

 twelve to fifteen inches apart. The runners are cut from time to time with 

 shoe-knives, the left hand gathering them up by a single rapid movement, 

 and the right hand severing them by a stroke. One woman will, by 

 this method, clip the runners from several acres during the growing 

 season. To keep his farm in order, Mr. Young must employ seventy- 

 five hands through the summer. The average wages for women is fifty 

 cents, and for men seventy-five to ninety cents. In the item of cheap 

 labor the South has the advantage of the North. 



With the advent of autumn, the onslaught of weeds gradually 

 ceases, and there is some respite in the labors of a Virginia strawberry 

 farm. 



At Charleston and farther south, this respite is brief, for the winters 

 there are so mild that certain kinds of weeds will grow all the time, 

 and early in February they must begin to cultivate the ground and 

 mulch the plants for bearing. 



Bordering on Mr. Young's farm, and farther up the creek, there are 

 hundreds of acres of salt meadows. From these he has cut, in the 

 autumn and early winter, two hundred tons of hay, and with his lighter 

 floats it down to his wharf. In December, acre after acre is covered 

 until all the plants are quite hidden from view. In the spring, this 

 winter mulch is left upon the ground as the summer mulch, the new 

 growth in most instances pushing its way through it readily. When it is 

 too thick to permit this, it is pushed aside from the crowns of the plants. 



Thus far he has given the bearing fields no spring culture, adopt- 

 ing the common theory that the ground around the plants must not 

 be disturbed at this season. I advocate the opposite view, and believe 

 in early spring culture, as I have already explained; and I think his 

 experience this year will lead him to give my method a trial in 1880. 

 The latter part of April and early May was very dry at Norfolk, and 



