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Modern Strawberry Growing. 



[JULY, 



to keep old beds and save the trouble and expense of making 

 new ones is too strong for some amateurs, but trade growers 

 get it knocked out of them by painful experience. A straw- 

 berry plant is generally at its best in its second year. The third 

 shows a decline, which may be only slight, or may be strongly 

 marked, according to the quality of the soil. It may be said 

 that this decline can be arrested by manuring, but herein lies 

 a difficulty. Merely spreading on a mulching of manure or 

 turning manure in between the rows is not sufficient, and the 

 only resource is to make new beds. It may be taken as 

 established that it is more economical to do this than to 

 endeavour to maintain the productiveness of old ones. A com* 

 parison of the length of time the ground is occupied by plants 

 fruiting for the first time in the first and second years respectively, 

 each set fruiting three times, shows the advantage of the first 

 method, as follows : — First Method : Plants struck early in 1907,. 

 and fruited in the summers of 1908, 1909, 1910, and then done 

 away with ; Second Method : Plants struck late in 1907, grown 

 on in the summer of 1908, and fruited in the summers of 1909, 

 1910, 191 1, and then cleared away. Thus the second set would 

 be in hand one year longer than the other, and, in order to' 

 balance accounts, it should give proportionately more fruit. 



Manuring. — A problem hardly less important than that of 

 early or late propagation is that of manuring. Even trade 

 growers themselves, who do not eat the fruit which they 

 cultivate, but are mainly concerned in growing as much as 

 possible of marketable quality, are beginning to point to the 

 softness of flesh and coarseness of flavour which accompany 

 the very heavy dressings of yard manure that are now the rule, 

 Since it is so difficult to maintain the fertility of a strawberry 

 bed by subsequent manuring, the grower is naturally anxious 

 to " do " his soil well at the outset, in order that the plants 

 may have something to feed upon for three or four years. This 

 is the explanation of the heavy manuring that is practised. The 

 alternative is to reduce the bulk of the manure and supplement 

 the fruit-forming constituents with certain chemicals. These 

 fruit-formers will not be found in nitrates, and the grower who- 

 adds nitrate of soda or sulphate of ammonia to his yard manure 

 is simply stimulating leaf growth and wasting his money. 

 Assuming that his dung is of good quality, it will yield all the 



