Success with Small Fruits

ere are not merely accidental or remediable, such as lack of depth or fertility, the presence of stones or stumps, undue wetness of soil, etc. Any or all of these obstacles may be fou

a stiff, cold, stubborn clay, or toward a droughty, leachy sand that retains neither fertili

e best. Experience and observation have, however, convinced me of the contrary. With the clay you have a stable foundation. Your progress may be slow, but it can be made sure. The character of a sandy foundation was t

as possible to the action of frost. Early in the spring, as soon as the ground was dry enough to work and all danger of frost was over, I would harrow in buckwheat and plow it under as it came into blossom; then sow a second crop and plow that under also. It is the characteristic of buckwheat to lighten and clean land, and the reader perceives that it should be our constant aim to impart lightness and life to the heavy soil. Lime, in addition to its fertilizing effects, acts chemically on the ground, pr

ts decomposition fills the soil with ammonia and other gases vitally necessary to the plant. A clay soil retains these g

se, judgment and moderation must be employed. The roots of a young, growing plant cannot feed in a mass of fermenting manure, no matter what the soil may be. The point I wish to make is that cold, heavy land is greatly benefited by having th

nted, or else you will have a hay-field in spite of all you can do. The decay of this mass of roots, however, furnishes just the food required, and a crop of buckwheat gre

er, he will find it far better, both to enrich and to lighten up his heavy soil; for it is justly regarded as the best m

st instances, by a judicious use of the means suggested, they can be

ight fertilizers, and if a good heavy coat of hot strawy manure is trenched in the heaviest, stickiest clay, in October or November, strawberries or anything else can be planted the following spring. The gar

irred when either very wet or very dry, or else a lumpy condition results that injures it for years. It should be plowed or dug

es, much of the soil would ooze away with every rain, or slide downhill en masse. In the South, therefore, unless a clay soil is to be planted at once, it must not be disturbed in the fall, and it is well if it can be protected by stubble or litter, which shields it from the direc

and. In my judgment, however, barnyard manure is not surpassed in value by any other in any latitude. If one owned clay land from which

s will thrive and produce abundantly; but to do this is the very pith of our difficulty. Too often a sandy soil will not retain moisture and manure. Such light land is generally very deficient in vegetable matter; and therefore, whenever it is possible, I would turn under green crops. If the soil could be made sufficiently fertile to produce a heavy crop of clover, and this were plowed under in June, and then buckwheat harrowed in and its rank growth turned under in August, strawberries could be planted as soon as the heat of decay was over, wi

nt. If possible, I would not use any manure on light ground until all fermentation was over, and then I would rather harrow than plow it in. This will leave it near the surface, and the rains will leach it down to the roots-and below them, also-only too soon. Fertility cannot be stored up in sand as in clay, and it should be our aim to give our strawberries the food they need in a form that permi

s every fall, and then plowing it in. The winter's frost and rains mix the two diverse soils, to their mutual benefit. Carting sand on clay is

op," as it is termed; and they do make it for a few years, but to the utter impoverishment of the land. The soil becomes as exhausted as a man would be should he seek to labor u

a condition in which he can take and be strengthened by food, so land, too poor and light to sprout a pea, can be stimulated into producing a meagre green crop of some kind, which, plowed under, will enable the land to produce

will pay on a continent abounding in land na

we must grow our strawberries on them, give the

it burns and dwindles. Under such conditions I should experiment

ndividual character. I have yet to learn of a system of rules that will teach us how to deal with every man we me

inciple which was made prominent at first. Though we give our strawberry plants everything else they need, our crop of fruit will yet be good or bad in the proportio