30 The Strawberry Book. 
when they are easily obtained; and of these, oak leaves 
are the worst, blowing off sometimes faster than they can 
be raked back, and pine needles the best. A uniform, even 
covering of two or three inches of pine leaves, somewhat 
matted by long lying in the woods, with a few pine boughs 
on top, if the bed is much exposed to the wind, is about 
as good a winter protection to the plants as can be desired. 
The beds should be covered before the ground has frozen 
very hard, and, of course, in time to anticipate the first 
heavy fall of snow. One gardener I know, having plenty 
of labor at command, covers his beds early in the winter 
with about eighteen inches of oak leaves, with boughs on 
top, so that I do not believe the soil of his beds freezes 
from one year’s end to another. 
Where leaves are used, enough will generally settle in 
among the plants to make a very excellent mulch for the 
summer months. 
A covering of light,’ strawy manure will answer very 
well for a winter protection; but a covering of solid, wet, 
barn-yard manure, if applied late in the fall, will almost 
certainly kill every vine. 
A few garden rows of valuable plants may be very neatly 
protected by covering each row with leaves, and then with 
two old boards leaning against each other, so as to make 
a covering like an inverted V, thus keeping down the 
leaves, and turning off the rain. But I must add that I 
have in this manner so thoroughly protected strawberry 
plants in pots, standing on the surface of the ground, that 
they got as dry as ashes in the winter, and were stone dead 
in the spring. 
