In the poultry-room we managed in this fashion.  A foot of raked-up leaves and rich earth was placed under the perches of the fowls.  Every two or three weeks this layer was shovelled out and mixed thoroughly, and was replaced by a new layer.  As a result I had, by the 1st of August, a large heap of fertilizer almost as good as guano, and much safer to use, for I had read that unless the latter was carefully managed it would burn vegetation like fire.  I believe that this compost-heap by the poultry-room window would give my young strawberry plantation a fine start, and, as has been shown, we were making great calculations on the future fruit.

I also resolved that the burning of the barn should add to our success in this direction.  All the books said that there was nothing better for strawberries than wood ashes, and of these there was a great heap within the foundations of the destroyed building.  At one time I proposed to shovel out these ashes and mix them with the compost, but fortunately I first consulted my book on fertilizers, and read there that this would not do at all—­that they should be used separately.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

AUGUST WORK AND PLAY

I was now eager to begin the setting of the strawberry plants in the field where we had put potatoes, but the recent heavy shower had kept the latter still green and growing.  During the first week in August, however, I found that the tubers had attained a good size, and I began to dig long rows on the upper side of the patch, selling in the village three or four barrels of potatoes a week for immediate use.  By this course I soon had space enough cleared for ten rows of strawberries; and on the 6th of August Mr. Jones came and plowed the land deeply, going twice in a furrow.  Then I harrowed the ground, and, with a corn-plow, marked out the space with shallow furrows three feet apart.  Through five of these furrows Merton sprinkled a good dressing of the poultry compost, and in the remaining five drills we scattered wood ashes.  Thus we should learn the comparative value of these fertilizers.  Then I made a rude tray with two handles, so that it could be carried between Merton and myself.  When the sun declined, we went to the strawberry bed, and having selected the Duchess variety to set out first, soaked with water a certain portion of the ground that was thick with plants.  Half an hour later, we could dig up these plants with a ball of earth attached to their roots.  These were carried carefully on the tray to the field, and set out in the furrows.  We levelled the ground first, so that the crown of the plant should be even with the surrounding surface.  We set the plants a foot apart in the rows, and by dusk had three rows out.  Early the next morning we gave these plants a good soaking in their new starting place, and, although the weather was now dry and warm, not a leaf withered, and all began to grow as if they had not been moved.  It seemed slow work, but I believed it would pay in the end, especially as Merton, Winnie, and I performed nearly all the labor.