THE STRAWBERRY. 153 



should be then discontinued until the fruit is set. When 

 there is no such arrangement for evaporation, dash water 

 over the floors and use the syringe. To secure fine berries 

 and bunches, one- third of the berries should be thinned out 

 when of the size of peas, using scissors made for this 

 purpose. 



CHAPTER XLVIII. 



THE STRAWBERRY. 



Of all small fruits, none perhaps stand so high in 

 general favor as the strawberry. Its culture is simple, 

 and as it grows freely in almost any soil or location, no 

 garden of any pretensions should be without it. If 

 a choice of soil can be had, nothing is so suitable as a 

 deep, rich, but rather sandy loam, though it will yield 

 returns sufficient to warrant its cultivation on any soil, 

 from almost pure sand to clay, providing that it is drained 

 naturally or artificially. In all soils, deep spading or 

 plowing is essential to the production of fine crops ; and 

 this should not be less than a foot, and if 18 inches, all 

 the better. A coat of thoroughly rotted stable manure 

 at least three inches in thickness, should be dug in and 

 well mixed with the soil to a depth of six or nine inches. 

 In the absence of stable manure, any of the concentrated 

 fertilizers mentioned in chapter VI, " How to Use Con- 

 centrated Fertilizers," used in the manner and quantities 

 there described, will do as a substitute. Where muck 

 from the swamps, or leaf-mold from the woods can be 

 obtained, twenty bushels of either of these mixed with 

 one bushel of ashes, will make an excellent fertilizer for 

 strawberries, and may be spread on as thickly as stable 

 manure, and on sandy soils is probably better. 



