14 The Strawberry Book. 
horse manure is excellent, acting, as it does, as a fertilizer 
and a protection at once, but it should be very light and 
strawy. <A top-dressing of heavy, green manure, applied 
in the fall, will, as I can testify, give the grower a bed of 
black and stone dead plants in the spring. 
The different manures have different claims. Guano 
and ashes, for instance, are portable and convenient, and 
give much strength in a small bulk, while stable manure 
lightens heavy land, and leaves the field in better heart, to 
use a farmer’s expression. 
It is said to be unprofitable to use more than half a ton 
of Peruvian guano to the acre. I applied it to a small 
field of plants set out this year at the rate of- twelve hun- 
dred pounds per acre, with excellent results, so far as a 
good spread and stockiness of the young.vines are con- 
cerned. ; 
The best preparation the soil can have to fit it for straw- 
berry cultivation is deep and thorough ploughing. The 
soil for strawberries, whether poor or rich, can hardly be 
too fine or too deep. Charles Downing, I think, says that 
he has unearthed strawberry roots that were four feet 
long ; and any one can convince himself of the fact that 
they spread very widely, by carefully tracing out the 
fibrous roots of a Hovey in a good garden soil, 
A clean-hoed crop of corn is, perhaps, as good as any- 
thing to precede strawberries, although, of course, pota- 
toes, or any market vegetable that requires clean culture, 
may be substituted for corn. (I may add, in parentheses, 
that, on the other hand, a strawberry bed that has done 
bearing may be ploughed under and followed by potatoes 
with surprisingly good results.) . 
Freedgm from weeds is a great blessing in all cases, 
but is especially desirable in strawberry culture, and one 
or two extra hoeings bestowed on a crop of potatoes or 
corn, that is to be followed by strawberries, will not only 
benefit the plants that are hoed, but will be clear gain in 
