574 



THE STRxiWBERRY. 



every way, early in August. Next year, after the plants have borne their 

 crop, they are dug down, with or without manure, as may be deemed neces- 

 sary, and replanted. In this way strawberries are grown on the same 

 ground for a number of years, no plant ever producing more than one crop. 

 A third mode of growing strawberries in beds consists in having every alter- 

 nate bed, not of strawberries, but of some low-growing crop ; and keeping it 

 under low-growing crops for two, three, or more years. The beds are then 

 prepared for the reception of strawberries, and they are filled simply by 

 allowing the runners of the adjoining beds to take possession of them. This 

 they will have done, in the most effectual manner, by the end of August, 

 when the plants must be thinned out where too thick, and the parent beds 

 all dug down and cropped with low-growing vegetables, such as turnips, 

 carrots, onions, &c., for one, two, three, or four years, according as it may 

 be desired to have large or small fruit. When the runners are only allowed 

 to bear one crop, the fruit will be large and early, but if they are retained 

 for three years, the fruit will be much smaller the third year than the first. 

 This mode is attended with very little labour, and if the runners are only 

 allowed to produce one crop it will be as abundant and large as by any mode 

 of culture whatever. In some gardens formerly beds of runners, neither 

 thinned or manured, were allowed to produce four or five crops, but the fruit, 

 though abundant when the soil happened to be a strong loam, was so small 

 that in the present day it would not be thought fit to send to table. Plant- 

 ing in rows and renewing the plantation every three or four years for scar- 

 lets, and five or six for pine sorts, or in the case of alpines every second 

 year, is evidently preferable to any mode of growing on beds. 



1248. Mulching and watering. Mulching is useful both for keeping the 

 fruit clean, and retaining moisture in the soil. If stable litter is used, and 

 put on just before the leaves expand, it will serve also as manure ; the ani- 

 mal matters which adhere to it will be washed in by the rains, and by the 

 time the fruit is ripe the litter will be bleached as white as clean straw. 

 Short grass may be used as a mulch, but it is too retentive of moisture, and 

 the same may be said of leaves. Coarse gravel requires too much labour in 

 laying down and taking off ; but flat tiles form an excellent mulch, retaining 

 moisture, and reflecting heat among the leaves and fruit. Some persons 

 have had tiles made of a semicircular form, each with a small semicircle, 

 about three inches in diameter, cut out of it, so that two of these tiles cover 

 a circular space round the plant ; but not only is this a needless refine- 

 ment and waste, the tiles being unfit for anything else, but a portion 

 of the ground is left unmulched ; whereas, by using common drain 

 tiles the ground can be more completely covered, no extra expense 

 is incurred in their manufacture, and they are as fit for roofing, and 

 variety of other purposes, as if they had never been used for mulching, 

 ^^atering is essential to a good crop of strawberries in dry weather, and may 

 be performed on a large scale by the watering barrel, fig. 825, in p. 384, or 

 on ordinary occasions by the watering pot. The best time is the evening or 

 early in the morning, because at these seasons least is lost by evaporation 

 (826) ; and the water should always, if possible, be of a temperature some- 

 what higher than that of the soih Some amateurs grow their strawberries 

 in beds having small open brick channels as alleys, and these and the beds 

 being formed on a perfect level, by filling the alleys with water, it penetrates 



