256 TREATISE ON FRUIT TREES. 



But following the example of the residents of Montreuil, the expert growers of this plant, 

 it's preferable to set them out twice, in other words to plant them very close to one 

 another in rows from which they'll be taken around the beginning of April to be planted 

 in beds. It would be even better to put them in a nursery for a year in soil of poorer 

 quality than that in which they eventually will be cultivated. What the fruit loses in size, 

 it will gain in fragrance. 



3°. The base of the plant is mulched again after the strawberries are harvested to 

 allow the offshoots to take root. By November these offshoots, when detached and put in 

 place as soon as possible, will form a very fine plant bed, preferable to one that develops 

 from runners. This is the way that strawbeny plants without runners usually are 

 propagated. 



Beds of common strawberry plants taken from the wild are planted on location 

 right away without being replanted a second time or put in a nursery. That's how their 

 cultivators do it. 



Beds of the Alpine strawberry plants, raised from seeds or from runners, also are 

 set out on location without staying over the winter or in a nursery, because they bloom a 

 year earlier than do other strawberry plants. 



II. Good free, friable, loose soil that isn't dry is the most suitable for strawberry 

 plants. They succeed fairly well in all kinds of soil depending on how closely it resembles 

 this. This type of soil doesn't need any fertilizer. Soils of lesser quality are composted & 

 fertilized if the size of the fruit is preferred over its fragrance. It's common knowledge 

 that strawberries gathered in the wild are the tastiest & that their quality declines as they 

 get bigger under cultivation. 



In hard & compact earth, where strawberry plants, especially those from America, 

 can't survive, the beds or plots are tilled & trimmed. Then small parallel furrows, six 

 inches wide 



