"24 The Strawberry Book: 
more out of the ground, and the. earth has to be hoed up 
to them. An annual manuring is of course needful. 
Strawberries may be kept in hills and made to do well 
several years in succession; but four years, or at the most 
five, is probably as long a time as it pays to leave the beds. 
undisturbed. I have, indeed, heard of hills being kept 
for twelve years; but this must have been an excep- 
tional case. aa 
It is' the custom with many gardeners to mow down the 
vines‘as soon as the fruit is picked, rake off, and clean the 
bed, and then to dig in among the hills a good dressing’ 
of manure. The foliage being cut off, and the roots 
broken and greatly disturbed, the plant is stimulated by 
the manure to. go to work and repair the damage done, 
which it effectually does by autumn, getting a new crown 
of leaves and filling the soil with roots. In this way. it 
may be said to practically become a new plant, and the 
beds are thus kept along from year to year. 
GULTIVATION IN Rows. . 
This is in effect a compromise between hill culture and 
cultivation in broad beds. Rows of plants may be set in 
the spring, three feet apart, with the plants nine inches 
asunder in the rows; and when the runners appear, the 
first five or six are carefully laid in lengthwise of the row, 
and the rest cut off as fast as they appear. In good soil 
a thick, continuous, bushy row is the result, and some 
varieties do, very well when grown in this manner, partic- 
ularly Lennig’s White, which most admirable berry is 
very unproductive in a matted bed. The soil on each 
side of the row must be well mulched with straw or hay, 
to keep the fruit off the dirt. 
A method of cultivation somewhat in vogue at the 
West is, to plant the strawberry vines in hills, at a suita- 
‘ble distance apart, and to put on in the fall a mulch of 
three or four inches of hay. This hay is not removed in 
