STRAWBERRIES AND THEIR KIN 
and poetry of existence is associated with these 
berries; and if, then, you widen out your vision to 
take in the whole family — including several vari- 
eties of trees that do not give edible fruit — you 
will see that it is of royal blood. 
You will be tempted, at the very outset of your 
home-making in the country, to plant a large straw- 
berry bed. There are certainly few sights more 
beautiful than a row of strawberry plants loaded 
with blossoms and ripening and ripe berries. The 
fruit simply covers the ground. For most people 
it is a very wholesome fruit, although I have found 
a few to whom it was a poison. Yet I advise you 
to go slow in planting strawberries, for the reason 
that there is no fruit that needs more specific atten- 
tion and continuous care, and for that matter more 
horticultural skill, than this little vine. I would 
surely begin with a very small plot, and I would 
experiment with only two or three varieties to 
begin with. Inthe first place, the bed must be pre- 
pared very carefully, to exclude not only roots of 
weeds, but weed seeds. If you enrich it with barn- 
yard manure in which there is clover seed and 
grass seed, you will have only continuous labor and 
small crops. The soil should be light and friable, 
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