THE COUNTRY HOME [CHAPTER 
thoroughly worked, and very strong. Really good 
vegetable soil, in which can grow the best potatoes, 
onions, and beets, is good strawberry soil. I should 
lay out my bed with relation to adjacent crops, so 
that the horse-cultivator can do the work at the 
same time that it goes through the raspberry or 
other small-fruit rows. 
If the soil needs fertilizing, apply the most com- 
pletely decomposed barnyard manure, with which 
may be mixed a good proportion of ashes. If the 
ground is inclined to be stiff you may work in a 
large amount of coal ashes from anthracite coal. 
These loosen the clay soil, and allow the absorp- 
tion of nitrogen. Where commercial fertilizer is 
used, apply, in the fall, kainit and phosphates. The 
following spring apply nitrate of soda — before the 
blossoms have appeared, and when the leaves are 
dry. One of the Experiment Stations gives the 
following formula: Cottonseed meal, five hundred 
pounds; acid phosphate, one thousand pounds; 
muriate of potash, two hundred and fifty pounds 
per acre. You can easily estimate the proportion 
needed for your small bed. This formula should 
be applied late in the summer or late in the fall. 
Nitrate of soda can be applied in the spring, in con- 
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