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profitable, from low, damp ground up to more healthy locations, 

 they speedily become more fruitful and more resistant to blight. 



Preparing the Soil. Although the land need not be virgin 

 land, it is essential that the plot should be new ; that is to say, that 

 it should not have been under strawberry culture before, or for 

 many years previously. Strawberries, indeed, are gross feeders, 

 and abstract from the ground large quantities of fertilising elements, 

 the depletion of which makes the ground unsuitable for that crop 

 after a period of a few years. Old ground, besides, gets foul with 

 parasitic insects and fungi, which prey on the crop. The simplest 

 way of getting rid of such pests is by a system of starvation, which 

 is attained by refraining to plant strawberry after strawberry on 

 the same ground. The ground should be prepared in the spring 

 and laid fallow for the summer preceding planting. If only a small 

 plot, it can be broken up with the spade or the fork to a depth of 

 12 to 15 inches. If a larger field, two ploughs, one following in 

 the wake of the other with its mould board taken oif, should be 

 made to break up the land to a depth of at least 14 inches. 



Several harrowings following this deep ploughing reduce the 

 ground to a state of fine tilth, sweetening it by favouring the 

 atmospheric action upon its mass. This clean cultivation also 

 frees the ground of a great many troublesome weeds and of such 

 destructive underground insects as the wire worms, the white grubs 

 of the cockchafer, and other insects that cause injury to the root 

 system of the plant. Besides, the deeper the ground is worked up 

 the better able it will be to absorb and retain moisture, and the 

 greater mass will there be through which the roots will penetrate 

 in search of food and moisture. 



When the time of planting comes about the end of March 

 the requisite manure is spread over the ground, which is ploughed 

 again to a depth of 6 to 8 inches, and gathered into lands, narrow 

 if the spot is wet, broader if dry ; it is then harrowed, and if still 

 lumpy, lightly rolled down. 



Manuring. The strawberry is a gross feeder, and the more 

 liberal the grower is in feeding it, the more prolific it proves itself 

 to be. The crop is, moreover, a perennial one, that is to say, when 

 establishing a strawberry bed we must store, at the same time, into 

 the ground a stock of fertilisers which will supply all the require- 

 ments of the plants for at least three seasons. Nor must the food 

 be stinted to them, but it should be given in plenty and under an 

 easily assimilable form. 



These fertilisers should not be buried too deep either, as the 

 strawberry feeds in 15 to 18 inches of soil. After the deep fallow- 

 ing, but before the light ploughing which precedes planting out, 

 the manure is placed on the ground. 



If well-rotted stable manure is procurable, nothing is better ; 

 manure which is not tainted by sawdust litter, and which is procured 

 from stables where the animals are well fed, is the best. Thirty loads 

 to the acre is by no means an excessive dressing ; and as the compo- 



