. Success with small fruits . igorously, cultivationceases, or else, with the more thorough, the cultivator is narroweddown till it stirs scarcely more than a foot of surface, care being takento go up one row and down another, so as always to draw the runnersone way. This prevents them from being tangled up and broken winter, the entire ground is covered with plants, which are pro-tected, as will be explained further on. In the spring, the coarsest ofthe covering is raked off, and between the rows is dug a space abouta foot or eighteen inches wide, which serves as a path for the pickers
. Success with small fruits . igorously, cultivationceases, or else, with the more thorough, the cultivator is narroweddown till it stirs scarcely more than a foot of surface, care being takento go up one row and down another, so as always to draw the runnersone way. This prevents them from being tangled up and broken winter, the entire ground is covered with plants, which are pro-tected, as will be explained further on. In the spring, the coarsest ofthe covering is raked off, and between the rows is dug a space abouta foot or eighteen inches wide, which serves as a path for the path is often cheaply and quickly made by throwing two lightfurrows together with a corn plow. Under this system, the first cropis usually the best, and in strong lands adapted to grasses the bedsoften become so foul that it does not pay to leave them to bear asecond year. If so, they are plowed under as soon as the fruit hasbeen gathered. More often two crops are taken, and then the land I lO Success with Small Matted Bed System. is put in some other crop for a year or two before being plantedwith strawberries again. This rude, inexpensive system is perhapsmore followed than any other. It is best adapted to light soils andcheap lands. Where an abundance of cool fertilizers has been-^:>-,-, used, or the ground has been generouslyprepared with greencrops, plowed under,the yield is oftenlarge and as often it is~—.. quite the reverse, es-pecially if the seasonproves dry and , plants sod-ded together cannotmature fine fruit, especially after they have exhausted half their vitalityin running. In clayey loams, the surface in the matted rows becomesas hard as a brick. Light showers make little impression on it, andthe fruit often dries upon the vines. Remembering that the straw-berrys chief need is moisture, it will be seen that it can scarcely bemaintained in a hard-matted sod. Under this system, the fruit issmall at best, and it all matu
Size: 2219px × 1126px
Photo credit: © Reading Room 2020 / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bo, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, bookpublishernewyorkdoddmead
