16 
Gardner E. Bunting, Grower of Fancy Fruit*, Selbyville, Del. 
1 
One of our Strawberry Fields after maturing about one half of their season'* growth. 
Use a Patent Weeder 
Another important result of proper cultivation of soil is in the loosening of it 
up in such a way as to leave small air spaces between the soil grains, the result of 
which is to furnish air to the bacterial germs, so they may perform their work of 
transforming the raw materials in the soil into an available form as plant food. 
The more unif jrmly these microbe organisms perform their part of the work, the 
more vigorously will the plants grow Before (lescril)ing more definitely the way 
to cultivate we shall enumerate its several advantages. 
1. It prevents the formation of crust on the surface of the soil. 
2. It creates and maintains a blanket of dust over the surface of the ground, 
retains moisture in the soil and keeps its temperature at a normal degree. 
3. It enables bacteria to secure ample quantities of air. 
4. It destroys weed seed while in the germinating stage; and this, by the way, 
is the hest time to kill all obnoxious growths. 
5. It mixes the fertilizer with the soil, so that the bacterial germs may work 
up the fertilizer into available forms of plant food. 
It keeps the strawberry runners from overflowing into the space between the 
rows. 
The plants should be cultivated after each rain as soon as the soil is dry enough 
to crunible, and should it remain dry the cultivation should be repeated every eight 
or ten days, thus replacing the old dust mulch with a new dust mulch. 
When the plants become large and begin to spread out it is a good plan to have 
the cultivator teeth that run next to the plants about two inches shorter than the 
other teeth. When arranged in this way the teeth will go deeply enough to break 
the crust near the plants without cutting any of the roots of the plant. About 
twice each month a five-tooth cultivator should be run through the center of the 
space between the rows. It may go four or five inches deep and will loosen up the 
soil where the horse tramped it down while doing the shallow cultivation. The 
work of cultivating is easy and inexpensive. One man and horse easily may culti- 
vate four acres of strawberry plants a day. 
