the hard, sodden surface is loosened or scarified, and opened to the reception of air and light, dew and rain.  The man is charged emphatically that in this cultivation he must not lift the plants or disturb the roots to any extent.  If I find a plant with its hold upon the ground loosened, I know there has been careless work.  Before digging along the row the fork is sunk beside the plants to prevent the soil from lifting in cakes, and the plants with them.  In brief, pains are taken that the plants should be just as firm in the soil after cultivation as before.  Let the reader carefully observe that this work is done early in April, while the plants are comparatively dormant.  Most emphatically it should not be done in May, after the blossoms begin to appear.  If the bed has been neglected till that time, the surface merely can be cultivated with a hoe.  When the plants have approached so near to the fruiting, the roots must not be disturbed at all.  Early cultivation gives time for new roots to grow, and stimulates such growth.  Where the rows are sufficiently long, and the ground permits it, this early loosening of the soil is accomplished with a horse-cultivator better than with a fork, the hoe following and levelling the soil and taking out all weeds.

My next step during the second season is to mulch the plants, in order to keep the fruit clean.  Without this mulch the fruit is usually unfit for the table.  A dashing shower splashes the berries with mud and grit, and the fruit must be washed before it is eaten; and strawberries with their sun-bestowed beauty and flavor washed away are as ridiculous as is mere noise from musical instruments.  To be content with such fruit is like valuing pictures by the number of square inches of canvas!  In perfecting a strawberry, Nature gives some of her finest touches, and it is not well to obliterate them with either mud or water.  Any light clean material will keep the fruit clean.  I have found spring rakings of the lawn—­mingled dead grass and leaves—­one of the best.  Leaves from a grove would answer, were it not for their blowing about in an untidy way.  Of course there is nothing better than straw for the strawberry; but this often costs as much as hay.  Any clean litter that will lie close to the ground and can be pushed up under the plants will answer.  Nor should it be merely under the plants.  A man once mulched my rows in such a way that the fruit hung over the litter on the soil beyond.  A little common-sense will meet the requirement of keeping the berries well away from the loose soil, while at the same time preserving a neat aspect to the bed.  Pine-needles and salt-hay are used where these materials are abundant.