setting in September if you can.  If you set later, in October, cover the plants with a slight covering of straw as soon as planted.  Then afterwards, when you make a business of covering put on a little more, cover them nicely—­but you are liable to kill them if you put on too much.  Two inches deep I find to be about the right depth to go through our ordinary winters.  I mean two inches after the straw has settled.  I think many persons spoil their plants, or at least injure them severely, by putting on too heavy a coat of covering.  I will also tell you to beware of using horse-manure as a covering for strawberries.  Clean straw or hay is the best of covering.  (Fall planting of strawberries not advisable in Minnesota.—­Secy.)

Most people do not trim the plants enough before they are set.  All fruit stems should be cut off, if there are any, and the most of the old leaves removed, two or three of the youngest leaves on the plant is all that should be left.  These will start right off into a vigorous growth, and you will soon have strong, healthy plants.  I think it pays to put a small handful of tobacco dust on and around each hill.  You can generally get it at your nearest greenhouse—­or you can find out there where to send for it.  Get enough to put it on two or three times during the early and latter part of summer.

Do not select ground for your new bed that has been in strawberries; take ground that has never had strawberries on, or at least that two or three crops of some kind have been taken from it since it was covered with strawberry vines.

After the plants are set, they should be well firmed; it is absolutely necessary that they should be very solid in the earth.  They should not be too deep nor too shallow, one is as bad as the other.  The crown buds should be in plain sight, after the ground is firmed and leveled, just in sight and no more.  A little temporary hilling will do no harm, but the ground should be kept as level as possible.  All cultivation should be shallow so as to not disturb the roots of the plants.  This is also a very important item.  Just remember that every plant loosened after it is set means death to the plant if it is not reset at once.  Cultivate often when the ground is not too wet.  Keep your bed entirely free of grass and weeds.  This is easily done if all work is done when it should be.  The time to kill weeds is when the seed first sprouts; don’t wait until the weed plants are an inch or more high; if you do you will never keep them clean, and then you will never have success in your work.

[Illustration:  Chas. F. Gardner at work in his everbearing strawberry experiment grounds.]

Cut all fruit stems off as fast as they appear, until your plants get well rooted, and then let them bear as much as they want to.  But if some plants set an unusually large number it is well to cut out part of the fruit.  If rightly thinned you will increase the yield in quarts.