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.

If fruit is the main object, after the plants are well located and begin
to set fruit for your main crop, they can be mulched with clean straw or
hay, carefully tucked up around each hill. This will keep the fruit
clean and conserve the moisture in the soil, and you can stop
cultivating. If plants are the main object, then you can not use the
mulching, but must keep the cultivator going between the rows. Well
informed growers of the strawberry plant generally have beds on purpose
for fruit in one place, and in another place one to grow plants.

No one will make a success in growing strawberries unless he can learn
to detect the rogues that appear from time to time in strawberry patches
or in the fields. These rogues are generally plants that have come up
from the seed that has been scattered in one way and another over the
bed. Berries are stepped on and mashed, other berries are overlooked and
rot on the ground, but the seed remain and germinate when the time comes
for it in the spring, and some of these plants are not destroyed by
cultivation or by hoeing, and soon make trouble for the grower. No
seedling will be like the original plants that were first set, and many
of them will be strong growing plants, good runner