FRUITS VARIETIES AND CULTURE. 639 



cinnati, where the strawberry season is usually less than 

 a mouth. 



Potash, soda and phosphoric acid are the elements 

 most likely to be wanting in the soil. Wood ashes and 

 the carbonates of potash and soda prove very beneficial 

 applications. 



Propagation and Culture. — To raise the strawberry in 

 perfection requires good varieties, a proper location, care- 

 ful cultivation, vegetable manure, mulching the roots. 

 aud regular watering. 



The strawberry bed should be in the lowest part of the 

 garden, succeeding best on a bottom near some little 

 stream of water, where the soil is moist and cool; no trees 

 or plants should be allowed to overshadow it, to drink up 

 the moisture of the soil. New land is the best, aud the 

 most easily kept free from weeds. The soil should be 

 dug or plowed deep. 



It is not required to be very rich, unless with decayed 

 vegetable matter, as animal manures produce only a 

 growth of vine. Plant good, vigorous runners from old 

 stocks, three feet apart each way; three rows of pistil- 

 la tes, and then one row of good hermaphrodites, and so 

 on, until the bed or plot is filled ; cultivate precisely as 

 jou would corn, and as often. As the runners appear, cut 

 them off, and keep the plants in hills; this is a much bet- 

 ter plan than to permit them to run together and occupy 

 the entire surface of the ground; after the beds have done 

 fruiting, still keep them clear from grass and weeds, and 

 when the leaves fall from the trees in the fall, give a good 

 coat of these as a winter protection. 



There is no fruit which has been so greatly improved 

 within the last few years as has the strawberry, in size, 

 productiveness, and flavor; it is now as generally culti- 

 vated as the apple or any of our standard vegetables. 

 Most of the then esteemed varieties are now superseded 



