On the Management of Strawberries. 55 



as an effect of real cleanliness, which should never be wanting 

 in a gentleman's garden. 



The Strawberry beds in the garden at Spring Grove 

 which have been measured for the purpose of ascertaining the 

 expense incurred by this method of management, are aboul: 

 75 feet long, and five feet wide, each containing three rows 

 of plants, and of course requiring four rows of straw to be 

 laid under them. The whole consists of 600 feet of beds, or 

 1800 feet of Strawberry Plants, of different sorts, in rows. 

 The strawing of these beds consumed this year, 1806, the 

 long straw of 26 trusses, for the short straw being as good for 

 litter, as the long straw, but less applicable to this use, is 

 taken out ; if we allow then on the original 26 trusses, six for 

 the short straw taken out and applied to other uses, 20 trusses 

 will remain, which cost this year lOd. a truss, or 16s. Sd. 

 being one penny for every nine feet of Strawberries in rows. 



From this original expenditure the value of the manure 

 made by the straw when taken from the beds must be de- 

 ducted, as the whole of it goes undiminished to the dunghill 

 as soon as the crop is over. The cost of this practice there- 

 fore cannot be considered as heavy ; in the present year not 

 a single shower fell at Spring Grove, from the time the straw 

 was laid down till the crop of Scarlets was nearly finished, 

 at the end of June. The expense of strawing was therefore 

 many times repaid by the saving made in the labour of water- 

 ing, and the profit of this saving was immediately brought to 

 account in increase of other crops, by the use of water 

 spared from the Strawberries, and besides, the berries them- 

 selves were, under this management, as fair and nearly as 

 large as in ordinary years ; but the general complaint of the 



