44 WINTER PROTECTION. 



will not smother them or mildew, will answer the 

 purpose, but clean straw is preferable, except they 

 need the decaying leaves. 



Some years ago, we had an aged neighbor, who 

 stood almost unrivalled in the cultivation of the straw- 

 berry. One season he set out, on the first of July, 

 about one-fourth of an acre of fine Hovey's Seedlings. 

 He almost constantly and carefully worked among 

 them with the hoe, the rake, and water-pot, and I 

 never saw a plot of so fine strawberry -plants as these 

 had become on the approach of winter. 



The old man was " very much set in his way," and 

 among the things his creed discarded, was mulching 

 strawberries; so, against my repeated remonstrances, 

 he left them for the winter without mulching, with his 

 usual preparation, which consisted in placing a half 

 inch deep of good earth around each plant, in a circuit, 

 to the width of six or eight inches, leaving the surface, 

 scolloped inwards towards the centre of the plant. 

 The winter proved a severe one, and the old man was 

 saddened in the spring, to find his fine plants drawn 

 out of the ground to the length of three and four 

 inches, and laid flat on the earth. One-tenth part of 

 the labor he bestowed in hilling his plants for winter, 

 appropriated to covering them with a little loose straw, 

 would have saved them all. 



