44 



WINTER PROTECTION. 



will not smotlier tliem or mildew, will answer ttie 

 purpose, bnt clean straw is preferable, except tliey 

 need the decaying leaves. 



Some years ago, we liad an aged neighbor, who 

 stood cilmost unrivalled in the cultivation of the straw- 

 berry. One season he set out, on the first of July, 

 about one-fourth of an acre of fine Hovey's Seedlings. 

 He almost constantly and carefully w^orked amxong 

 them vath the hoe, the rake, and water-pot, and I 

 never saw a plot of so fine strawberry-plants as these 

 had become on the approach of winter. 



The old man was " very much set in his way," and 

 among the things his creed discarded, was mulching 

 strawberries; so, against my repeated remonstrances, 

 he left them for the winter without mulching, with his 

 • usual preparation, which consisted in placing a half- 

 inch deep of good earth around each plant, in a circuit, 

 to the width of six or eight inches, leaving the surface, 

 scolloped inwards towards the centre of the plant. 

 The winter proved a severe one, and the old man was 

 saddened in the spring, to find his fine plants drawn 

 out of the ground to the length of three and four 

 inches, and laid flat on the earth. One-tenth part of 

 the labor he bestowed in hilling his plants for w^inter, 

 appropriated to covering them with a little loose straw, 

 would have saved them all. 



