Now start the weeder and go over the field every week till the runners start, then use the nine-tooth cultivator with the two outside teeth two inches shorter than the others.  Cultivate every week till the middle of October.  Use the hoe to keep out all weeds and hoe very lightly about the plants.  Weeds are a blessing to the lazy man, but I don’t like to have it overdone.  Don’t let the soil bake after a rain.  Keep the cultivator running.  In garden work a steel tooth rake is a splendid garden tool.

Volume 1905, page 230 (An.  Report Minn.  State Hort.  Society).  Mr. Schwab gets an ideal strawberry bed, then kills it with twelve inches of mulch.  If the ice and snow had not come perhaps the plants would have pulled through.  Volume 41, page 390.  Mr. Wildhagen gives an ideal paper on strawberries, it will pay you to read it again and again.  Instead of one year’s preparation, I would have three.

Winter Protection. Unless in an exposed place, marsh hay is the best and cleanest mulch, but high winds may roll it off.  Clean straw away from the tailings of the machine is next best.  For small acreage if one inch can be put on as soon as the ground is frozen a half inch, it will save the many freezings and thawings before winter sets in.  For large acreage it is not practical to cover till frost will hold up a loaded wagon.  Two inches of mulch, that covers the plants and paths from sight is enough, but I see you cover deeper, from four to twelve inches in Minnesota, and often smother the plants.  If we could have a snow blanket come early and stay on late in spring, that would protect the plants, but we want the mulch also to protect from drouth and keep the berries clean.  A January thaw is liable to kill out any field that is not properly mulched.

A two inch mulch will not hinder the plants coming through in spring; four inches will require part of the mulch raked into the paths; if plants don’t get through readily loosen the mulch.  I have known some successful growers to take off all the mulch from the paths in spring and cultivate lightly but thoroughly, then replace the mulch to protect from drouth and to keep the berries clean, but I don’t think it pays.

Weeds. In the best fields and beds I ever saw there will come up an occasional weed in spring, and it pays to go over the ground with a spade or butcher knife and take out such weeds.  We almost always get a drouth at picking time, better a drought than too much rain.  A good straw mulch will usually carry us through.

Irrigation. If irrigation is attempted the fields must be prepared before planting to run water through between the rows.  Sprinkling will not do except at sundown.  Rain always comes in cloudy weather; you cannot wet foliage in sun in hot weather without damage.  A good rainfall is one inch, which is a thousand barrels to the acre, so what can you do with a sprinkling cart?  Showers followed by bright sunshine damage the patch.