104 RATIONAL FRUIT CULTURE. 



• — for the convenience of gathering, rather more between every 

 third and fourth row. In the first season this may seem a 

 waste of ground, and those who have small gardens may, if 

 they think fit, put the plants only one foot apart in the rows. 

 But if this is done, every alternate plant should be dug out 

 at the end of the first season. If the size of the bed can be 

 increased, there is no need to throw them away. If they 

 are lifted with soil they will make additional rows, and will 

 fruit quite as well as those that have not been moved — some- 

 times even better, because of the root-pruning caused by the 

 disturbance. If preferred, they can be potted and used for 

 forcing. 



MANURING THE BED.S. 



Of course, any increase in the number of plants in a bed 

 involves an increase in the quantity of manure which should 

 be applied. In addition to what is dug in during the prepara- 

 tion of the ground, annual top-dressings are necessary. As 

 Strawberries require a good deal of moisture, stable manure 

 is almost indispensable for them, but it may with advantage 

 be supplemented by artificial fertilisers, especially phosphate 

 and nitrate. If stable manure is applied in autumn, super- 

 phosphate may be used with it at the rate of four hundred- 

 weight per acre; and if, after flowering, nitrate of soda is 

 sprinkled between the rows — not over the foliage, which it 

 would burn — at the rate of two hundredweight per acre, the 

 bed should be capable of bearing a heavy crop. 



PROTECTION FROM BIRDS. 



It is useless to fjrow Strawberries unless the fruit is pro- 

 tected from birds. In a pnnlen, the simplest method is to 

 surrdiiiid the hed with small-meshed wire netting, held up 

 by iron supywrts or wooden posts. It should be he about six 

 feet in bright, to allow of walking between the rows without 

 stooping. The best covering is ordinary fish netting, made 



