AMERICAN HOME (iARHEN. 427 



adding compost also in the process. If pared off, fill up the 

 spaces with leaf-mould or compost, and either dig them Avith 

 the spade-fork or hook them over deeply with a potato-hook ; 

 then let the narrow strips of yomig plants be well hoed and 

 perfectly cleaned from weeds and grass, and you will leave the 

 whole bed as clean and loose as Avhen it was just planted, but 

 with a better stock of plants, and these undisturbed and ready 

 to grow right on. Place your mark-sticks at the centre of 

 the ends of your new rows, and keep the bed clean as before 

 until the runners cover it again preparatory to yom- next 

 crop ; and so alternate from year to year, manuring with com- 

 post, etc., as may be needful, at the annual renewal of the 

 bed. 



This mode, though it may at first appear complicated, is 

 really a simple and efiicient process for secm-ing a clean and, 

 with proper precautions, a full-cropping strawberry-bed at a 

 small expense of labor. 



Dress j'our bed repeatedly through the summer and fall with 

 leached ashes and liquid manure. Give it a very light winter 

 covering of straw or evergreen. Let it have at least one lib- 

 eral application of liquid manure at the opening of spring ; 

 and, if drought occur while the plants are in blossom or fruit, 

 water them often and heavily to such a degree as will prevent 

 their becoming sensible of want of moisture. 



Upon beds so treated the fruit will prove to be almost uni- 

 formly fine ; plants seldom yield fruit equaling, and never sur- 

 passing, the product of their second year, and by this system 

 every bearing plant in your bed comes within this class. 



In large operations for marketing, the strawberry crop is 

 sometimes brought into the system of farm rotation, upon this 

 alternating or renewal principle. New acres are planted every 

 spring, at from two to three feet distance each way, the land 

 being well manured, and furrowed as for corn, and the plants 

 set at the crossing ; they are kept clean with the cultivator, or 

 with the plow and corn-harrow, and a little hoeing until they 

 begin to run. Before winter they cover the ground ; and, as 

 soon as the crop is marketed in the following spring, the whole 

 patch is plowed under, and a fall crop of vegetables planted on 



