102 RATIONAL FRUIT CULTURE. 



danger, and also lo make good the loss of soluble food by drain- 

 age, more manure is necessary than in heavy loam. 

 DETERIORATION OP TQE PLANTS. 



Strawberries are at their best in their second and third 

 years. In their fourth years they begin to deteriorate, and 

 afterwards should be grubbed up. There may be plenty of 

 fruit, but it is always small. To destroy a whole bed at one 

 time would mean little or no fruit in the following season, 

 and if this course were adopted the same thing would recur 

 at intervals of four years. The best method is to dig up a 

 fourth of the rows at one end of the bed every year, and to 

 plant the same number of new rows at the other end. The 

 bed then always contains some rows at their best (in their 

 second and third years) , some going off (in their fourth year) , 

 and some coming on (in their first year). 



PROPAGATION. 



The plants for the new rows should be obtained from the 

 strongest runners. These are naturally the earliest that are 

 formed. It is sometimes said that " blind " plants — those 

 ^hich fail to fruit — should not be used for propagation, be- 

 cause their offspring will be blind. But a firm of Strawberry- 

 growers with a world-wide reputation asserts that this is not 

 true of any variety ordinarily grown in this country, the cause 

 of any occasional failure being merely local and temporary. 

 Apparently, then, unfruitfulness in a single season need not 

 be considered a. drawback, though, of course, if it was per- 

 sistent, that would be a different matter. As soon as a little 

 plant with a pair of leaves is seen, it should bo i>egged down 

 firmly into the ground, and the {,nowing-point of the runner 

 should be taken off, so as to prevent the formation of other 

 plants, which, by dividmg the sap with the first, would weaken 

 it. If the runners are layered in small pots insteati of in 

 the ground, llieic is s(iint> j^ain, beeause the roots are not dis- 



