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the amateur’s kitchen garden. 
in another crop, such as winter broccolis to begin with, or 
winter spinach, and all through the next summer you may 
crop between, taking care not to encroach too closely on the 
strawberries, but in the following year your plants will be too 
large to allow of any more stolen crops, and will pay their 
rent too well to permit of any such trilling. 
The routine culture consists in keeping the ground clear of 
weeds, putting on a heavy top dressing of long green stable 
dung in January or February, so as to just cover the plants 
and compel them to push through, and cutting back runners 
from the time they appear unless they are wanted, in which 
case those that come first are the best. As to watering, it all 
depends. On a hot dry soil water must be given copiously 
during May, June, and July, but generally speaking straw- 
berries do well without artificial watering, although systematic 
irrigation in a hot sunny season will pay well. The laying- 
down of a good coat of manure in February answers several 
purposes. The rain washes in the alkalies and phosphates to 
the advantage of the crop, the roots are protected from the 
heat of the sun, which is another advantage, and the litter 
that remains, and which the plants push through, becomes 
well washed by the rains of spring, and serves to keep the 
fruit clean. If you can afford the time you may put slates or 
stones under bunches of fruit to prevent contact with the 
soil, or you may spread clean straw or cocoa-nut fibre, or you 
may tie the bunches to sticks, or you may use “ crinoline” 
wire frames, or you may have strawberry tiles, which are flat 
and square with a semicircle cut out on one side, so that a 
pair of them form a clean square pavement with a hole in the 
centre for the plant. 
A very important feature in strawberry culture is the 
periodical renewal of the plantation. As a rule, the plants 
are in their most vigorous and fruitful state in the third year, 
after which they decline in vigour and should be destroyed. 
Instances might be cited of plantations remaining in health 
and fruitfulness for ten years, being aided by heavy top 
dressings in spring and occasional drenchings with a hose f*‘om 
a stand pipe during summer. But such exceptional cases 
must develope themselves, they cannot be provided for in 
books. In every garden that includes the strawberry amongst 
its necessary productions, a plantation, large or small, should 
be made every year, and simultaneously after the routine is 
