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Page 43
In addition to ease and thoroughness of cultivation, there are
other important advantages. The single narrow row of plants is
more easily protected against winter's frosts. Light, strawy
manure from the horse-stable serves well for this purpose; but it
should be light and free from heat. I have seen beds destroyed by
too heavy a covering of chunky, rank manure. It is not our purpose
to keep the beds and plants from freezing, but from alternately
freezing and thawing. If snow fell on the bed in December and
lasted till April, no other protection would be needed. Nature in
this latitude has no sympathy for the careless man. During the
winter of 1885, in January, and again in February and March, the
ground was bare, unprotected plants were badly frozen, and in many
instances lifted partly out of the ground by midday thawing and
night freezing. The only safe course is to cover the rows
thoroughly, but not heavily, early in December. If then light
stable-manure is not at hand, leaves, old bean-vines, or any dry
refuse from the garden not containing injurious seeds will answer.
Do not employ asparagus-tops, which contain seed. Of course we
want this vegetable, but not in the strawberry bed. Like some
persons out of their proper sphere, asparagus may easily become a
nuisance; and it will dispossess other growths of their rights and
places as serenely as a Knight of Labor. The proper balance must
be kept in the garden as well as in society; and therefore it is
important to cover our plants with something that will not
speedily become a usurper. Let it be a settled point, then, that
the narrow rows must be covered thoroughly out of sight with some
light material which will not rest with smothering weight on the
plants or leave among them injurious seeds. Light stable-manure is
often objected to for the reason that employing it is like sowing
the ground with grass-seed. If the plants had been allowed to grow
in matted beds, I would not use this material for a winter
covering, unless it had been allowed to heat sufficiently to
destroy the grass and clover seed contained in it. I have seen
matted beds protected with stable-manure that were fit to mow by
June, the plants and fruit having been over run with grass. No
such result need follow if the plants are cultivated in a single
line, for then the manure can be raked off in early spring--first
of April in our latitude--and the ground cultivated. There is a
great advantage in employing light manure if the system I advocate
is followed, for the melting snows and rains carry the richness of
the fertilizer to the roots, and winter protection serves a double
purpose.
We will now consider the proper management for the second year,
when a full crop should be yielded. I know that many authorities
frown upon cultivation during the second spring, before plants
bear their fruit. I can not agree with this view, except in regard
to very light soils, and look upon it as a relic of the old theory
that sandy land was the best for strawberries. Take the soil under
consideration, a sandy loam, for instance. After the frost is out,
the earth settled, and the winter covering raked off, the soil
under the spring sun grows hard, and by June is almost as solid as
a roadbed. Every one knows that land in such condition suffers
tenfold more severely from drought than if it were light and
mellow from cultivation. Perennial weeds that sprouted late in the
fall or early spring get a start, and by fruiting-time are
rampant. I do advocate EARLY spring cultivation, and by it I
almost double my crop, while at the same time maintaining a
mastery over the weeds.
As soon as the severe frosts are over, in April, I rake the
coarsest of the stable-manure from the plants, leaving the finer
and decayed portions as a fertilizer. Then, when the ground is dry
enough to work, I have a man weed out the rows, and if there are
vacant spaces, fill in the rows with young plants. The man then
forks the ground lightly between the rows, and stirs the surface
merely among the plants. Thus all the hard, sodden surface is
loosened or scarified, and opened to the reception of air and
light, dew and rain. The man is charged emphatically that in this
cultivation he must not lift the plants or disturb the roots to
any extent. If I find a plant with its hold upon the ground
loosened, I know there has been careless work. Before digging
along the row the fork is sunk beside the plants to prevent the
soil from lifting in cakes, and the plants with them. In brief,
pains are taken that the plants should be just as firm in the soil
after cultivation as before. Let the reader carefully observe that
this work is done EARLY in April, while the plants are
comparatively DORMANT. Most emphatically it should not be done in
May, after the blossoms begin to appear. If the bed has been
neglected till that time, the SURFACE MERELY can be cultivated
with a hoe. When the plants have approached so near to the
fruiting, the roots must not be disturbed at all. EARLY
cultivation gives time for new roots to grow, and stimulates such
growth. Where the rows are sufficiently long, and the ground
permits it, this early loosening of the soil is accomplished with
a horse-cultivator better than with a fork, the hoe following and
levelling the soil and taking out all weeds.
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