|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 48
It should be remembered that all strawberries, unlike pears,
should be allowed to mature fully before being picked. Many a
variety is condemned because the fruit is eaten prematurely. There
is no richer berry in existence than the Windsor Chief, yet the
fruit, when merely red, is decidedly disagreeable.
The reader can now make a selection of kinds which should give him
six weeks of strawberries. At the same time he must be warned that
plants growing in a hard, dry, poor soil, and in matted beds,
yield their fruit almost together, no matter how many varieties
may have been set out. Under such conditions the strawberry season
is brief indeed.
While I was writing this paper the chief enemy of the strawberry
came blundering and bumping about my lamp--the May beetle. The
larva of this insect, the well-known white grub, has an insatiable
appetite for strawberry roots, and in some localities and seasons
is very destructive. One year I lost at least one hundred thousand
plants by this pest. This beetle does not often lay its egg in
well-cultivated ground, and we may reasonably hope to escape its
ravages in a garden. If, when preparing for a bed, many white
grubs are found in the soil, I should certainly advise that
another locality be chosen. The only remedy is to dig out the
larvae and kill them. If you find a plant wilting without apparent
cause, you may be sure that a grub is feeding on the roots. The
strawberry plant is comparatively free from insect enemies and
disease, and rarely disappoints any one who gives it a tithe of
the attention it deserves.
There are many points in connection with this fruit which, in a
small treatise like this, must be merely touched upon or omitted
altogether. I may refer those who wish to study the subject more
thoroughly to my work, "Success with Small Fruits."
CHAPTER VIII
THE KITCHEN-GARDEN
The garden should be open to the sky, and as far as possible
unshaded by adjacent trees from the morning and afternoon sun. It
is even more essential that the trees be not so near that their
voracious roots can make their way to the rich loam of the garden.
Now for the soil. We should naturally suppose that that of Eden
was a deep sandy loam, with not too porous a subsoil. As we have
already seen again and again, such a soil appears to be the
laboratory in which we can assist Nature to develop her best
products. But Nature has a profound respect for skill, and when
she recognizes it, "lends a hand" in securing excellent crops from
almost drifting sand or stubborn clay. She has even assisted the
Hollander in wresting from the ocean one of the gardens of the
world.
We must again dwell on the principles already emphasized, that
soils must be treated according to their nature. If too damp, they
must be drained; if of the fortunate quality of a sandy loam
resting on a clay subsoil, they can be abundantly deepened and
enriched from the start, if of a heavy clay, inclined to be cold
and wet in spring, and to bake and crack in summer, skill should
aim to lighten it and remove its inertia; finally, as we have
shown, a light, porous soil should be treated like a spendthrift.
All soils, except the last-named, are much the better for being
enriched and deeply plowed or forked in October or November. This
exposes the mould to the sweetening and mechanical action of
frost, and the fertilizers incorporated with it are gradually
transformed into just that condition of plant food which the
rootlets take up with the greatest ease and rapidity. A light
soil, on the contrary, should not be worked in autumn, but be left
intact after the crops are taken from it.
In one respect a light soil and a stiff, heavy one should be
treated in the same way, but for different reasons. In the first
instance, fertilizers should be applied in moderation to the
surface, and rains and the cultivation of the growing crops
depended upon to carry the richness downward to the roots. The
porous nature of the earth must ever be borne in mind; fertilizers
pass through it and disappear, and therefore are applied to the
surface, to delay this process and enable the roots to obtain as
much nutriment as possible during the passage. Equal and even
greater advantages are secured by a top-dressing of barnyard
manures and composts to the heaviest of clay. The surface of such
soils, left to Nature, becomes in hot, dry weather like pottery,
baking and cracking, shielding from dew and shower, and preventing
all circulation of air about the roots. A top-dressing prevents
all this, keeps the surface open and mellow, and supplies not only
fertility, but the mechanical conditions that are essential.
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|