The rains will
carry it down fast enough. One of the very best methods is to open
furrows, three feet apart, with a light corn-plow, half fill them
with decayed compost, again run the plow through to mix the
fertilizer with the soil, then level the ground, and set out the
plants immediately over the manure. They thus get the benefit of
it before it can leach away. The accomplished horticulturist Mr.
P. T. Quinn, of Newark, N. J., has achieved remarkable success by
this plan.
It is a well-known fact that on light land strawberry plants are
not so long-lived and do not develop, or "stool out," as it is
termed, as on heavier land. In order to secure the largest and
best possible crop, therefore, I should not advise a single line
of plants, but rather a narrow bed of plants, say eighteen inches
wide, leaving eighteen inches for a walk. I would not allow this
bed to be matted with an indefinite number of little plants
crowding each other into feeble life, but would leave only those
runners which had taken root early, and destroy the rest. A plant
which forms in June and the first weeks in July has time to mature
good-sized fruit-buds before winter, especially if given space in
which to develop. This, however, would be impossible if the
runners were allowed to sod the ground thickly.
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