66 Fruit Culture. 



nate freezing and thawing of the ground, which disturbs or 

 breaks the rootlets of the plants. This greatly lessens their 

 productiveness and retards their growth. It should be re- 

 membered that mulching is not to keep the plants warm, 

 nor to keep the frost out of the ground ; it is rather to keep 

 a uniform quantity of frost in the ground. 



" It is well not to mulch a strawberry bed until the 

 weather gets so cold that the ground freezes every night ; 

 up to that time the plants, if properly cultivated, grow more 

 or less. Before mulching, the ground should be irrigated, 

 and it is probably better to put on the mulching when the 

 ground is frozen. Snow itself is as good a mulching as can 

 be devised. When the snow disappears the ground will be 

 in admirable condition for mulching without further moist- 

 ening. During a long and very dry winter the ground should 

 be wet once or twice, either by ordinary irrigation or by 

 sprinkling with a hose. This can be done without disturb- 

 ing the mulching, otherwise the ground will become so dry 

 that the plants will be greatly injured or destroyed. 



"Almost any kind of litter will do for mulching. Leaves, 

 which can be gotten in Colorado Springs, Greeley and some 

 other towns in Colorado, plentifully every autumn, answer 

 well. A covering of an inch or two of sawdust serves a 

 good purpose ; but probably the most convenient mulching 

 is long horse manure, which can generally be obtained for 

 the hauling. If carefully preserved the same lot of mulch- 

 ing will do for two years or more. Care should be taken 

 not to allow heavy lumps of manure to be immediately on 

 the plants. The mulching should be placed on the straw- 

 berry bed in sufficient quantity only to cover the ground 

 to carefully shade it from the sun's rays. To undertake to 

 give the proper thickness of the layer of covering would 

 be likely to mislead, as an inch of sawdust, or even half an 

 inch of wet leaves raked out of the ditches, would as effect- 

 ually shade the ground as three or four inches of light, 

 ,oose straw or hay. The object desired is to completely 



