PREPARING AND ENRICHING THE SOIL
Having from choice or necessity decided on the ground on which our
future strawberries are to grow, the next step is to prepare the soil.
The first and most natural question will be: What is the chief need of
this plant? Many prepare their ground in a vague, indefinite way. Let
us prepare for strawberries.
Whether it grows North or South, East or West, the strawberry plant is
the same, and has certain constitutional traits and requirements, which
should be thoroughly fixed in our minds. Modifications of treatment
made necessary by various soils and climates are then not only easily
learned but also easily understood.
When asked, on one occasion, what was the chief requirement in
successful strawberry culture, Hon. Marshall P. Wilder replied
substantially in the following piquant manner:--
"In the first place, the strawberry's chief need is a great deal of
water.
"In the second place, it needs more water.
"In the third place, I think I would give it a great deal more water."
The more extended and full my experience becomes, the less exaggeration
I find in his words. The following strong confirmation of President
Wilder's opinion may be found in Thompson's "Gardener's Assistant," a
standard English work:--
"Ground that is apt to get very dry from the effects of only ten days'
or a fortnight's drought is not suitable, on account of the enormous
quantity of water that will be necessary; and if once the plants begin
to flag for want of moisture, the crop is all but lost. A soil that is
naturally somewhat moist, but not too wet, answers well; and where the
land has admitted of irrigation, we have seen heavy crops produced
every year."
If this be true in England, with its humid climate, how much more
emphatically should we state the importance of this requirement in our
land of long droughts and scorching suns.
Moisture, then, is the strawberry's first and chief need. Without it,
the best fertilizers become injurious rather than helpful. Therefore,
in the preparation of the soil and its subsequent cultivation, there
should be a constant effort to secure and maintain moisture, and the
failure to do this is the chief cause of meagre crops. And yet, very
probably, the first step absolutely necessary to accomplish this will
be a thorough system of underdrainage. I have spent hundreds of dollars
in such labors, and it was as truly my object to enable the ground to
endure drought as to escape undue wetness. Let it be understood that it
is _moist_ and not _wet_ land that the strawberry requires. If water
stands or stagnates upon or a little below the surface, the soil
becomes sour, heavy, lifeless; and if clay is present, it will bake
like pottery in dry weather, and suggest the Slough of Despond in wet.
Disappointment, failure, and miasma are the certain products of such
unregenerate regions, but, as is often the case with repressed and
troublesome people, the evil traits of such soil result from a lack of
balance, and a perversion of what is good.
The underdrain restores the proper equilibrium; the brush-hook and axe
cut away the rank unwholesome growth which thrives best in abnormal
conditions. Sun, air, and purifying frosts mellow and sweeten the damp,
heavy malarious ground, as the plowshare lifts it out of its low
estate. A swamp, or any approach to one, is like a New York
tenement-house district, and requires analogous treatment.
If, however, we have mellow upland with natural drainage, let us first
put that in order that we may have a remunerative crop as soon as
possible. In suggesting, therefore, the best methods of preparing and
enriching the ground, I will begin by considering soils that are
already in the most favorable conditions, and that require the least
labor and outlay. Man received his most essential agricultural
instruction in the opening chapter of Genesis, wherein he is commanded
to "subdue the earth." Even the mellow western prairie is at first a
wild, untamed thing, that must be subdued. This is often a simple
process, and in our gardens and the greater part of many farms has
already been practically accomplished. Where the deep, moist loam, just
described, exists, the fortunate owner has only to turn it up to the
sun and give it a year of ordinary cultivation, taking from it, in the
process, some profitable hoed crop that will effectually kill the
grass, and his land is ready for strawberries. If his ground is in
condition to give a good crop of corn, it will also give a fair crop of
berries. If the garden is so far "subdued" as to yield kitchen
vegetables, the strawberry may be planted at once, with the prospect of
excellent returns, unless proper culture is neglected.
Should the reader be content with mediocrity, there is scarcely
anything to be said where the conditions are so favorable. But suppose
one is not content with mediocrity. Then this highly favored soil is
but the vantage-ground from which skill enters on a course of thorough
preparation and high culture. A man may plow, harrow, and set with
strawberries the land that was planted the previous year in corn, and
probably secure a remunerative return, with little more trouble or cost
than was expended on the corn. Or, he may select half the area that was
in corn, plow it deeply in October, and if he detects traces of the
white grub, cross-plow it again just as the ground is beginning to
freeze. Early in the spring he can cover the surface with some
fertilizer--there is nothing better than a rotted compost of muck and
barn-yard manure--at the proportion of forty or fifty tons to the acre.
Plow and cross-plow again, and in each instance let the first team be
followed by a subsoil or lifting plow, which stirs and loosens the
substratum without bringing it to the surface. The half of the field
prepared in such a thorough manner will probably yield three times the
amount of fruit that could be gathered from the whole area under
ordinary treatment; and if the right varieties are grown, and a good
market is within reach, the money received will be in a higher ratio.
The principle of generous and thorough preparation may be carried still
further in the garden, and its soil, already rich and mellow, may be
covered to the depth of several inches with well-rotted compost or any
form of barn-yard manure that is not too coarse and full of heat, and
this may be incorporated with the earth by trenching to the depth of
two feet. Of this be certain, the strawberry roots will go as deeply as
the soil is prepared and enriched for them, and the result in abundant
and enormous fruit will be commensurate. English gardeners advise
trenching even to the depth of three feet, where the ground permits it.
Few soils can be found so deep and rich by nature that they cannot be
improved by art; and the question for each to decide is, how far the
returns will compensate for extra preparation. Very often land for
strawberries receives but little more preparation than for wheat, and
such methods must pay or they would not be continued. Many who follow
these methods declare that they are the most profitable in the long
run. I doubt it.
If our market is one in which strawberries are sold simply as such,
without much regard to flavor or size, there is not the same inducement
to produce fine fruit. But even when quantity is the chief object,
deeply prepared and enriched land retains that essential moisture of
which we have spoken, and enables the plant not only to form, but also
to develop and mature, a great deal of fruit. In the majority of
markets, however, each year, size and beauty count for more, and these
qualities can be secured, even from a favorable soil, only after
thorough preparation and enriching. I find that every writer of
experience on this subject, both American and European, insists
vigorously on the value of such careful pulverization and deepening of
the soil.
Having thus considered the most favorable land in the best condition
possible, under ordinary cultivation, I shall now treat of that less
suitable, until we finally reach a soil too sterile and hopelessly bad
to repay cultivation.
I will speak first of this same deep, moist loam, in its unsubdued
condition; that is, in stiff sod, trees, or brush-wood. Of course, the
latter must be removed, and, as a rule, the crops on new land--which
has been undisturbed by the plow for a number of years and, perhaps,
never robbed of its original fertility--will amply repay for the extra
labor of clearing. Especially will this be the case if the brush and
rubbish are burned evenly over the surface. The finest of wild
strawberries are found where trees have been felled and the brush
burned; and the successful fruit grower is the one who makes the best
use of such hints from nature.
The field would look better and the cultivation be easier if all the
stumps could be removed before planting, but this might involve too
great preliminary expense, and I always counsel against debt except in
the direst necessity. A little brush burned on each stump will
effectually check new growth, and, in two or three years, these
unsightly objects will be so rotten that they can be pried out, and
easily turned into ashes, one of the best of fertilizers. In the
meantime, the native strength of the land will cause a growth which
will compensate for the partial lack of deep and thorough cultivation
which the stumps and roots prevent. Those who have travelled West and
South have seen fine crops of corn growing among the half-burned
stumps, and strawberries will do as well.
But where trees or brush have grown very thickly, the roots and stumps
must be eradicated. The thick growth on the sandy land of Florida is
grubbed out at the cost of about $30 per acre, and I know of a
gentleman who pays at the rate of $25 per acre in the vicinity of
Norfolk, Va. I doubt whether it can be done for less elsewhere.
In some regions they employ a stump extractor, a rude but strong
machine, worked by blocks and pulleys, with oxen as motor power. From
the "Farmer's Advocate" of London, Ont., I learn that an expert with
one of these machines, aided by five men and two yoke of oxen, was in
the habit of clearing fifty acres annually.
I have cleaned hedge-rows and stony spots on my place in the following
thorough manner: A man commences with pick and shovel on one side of
the land and turns it steadily and completely over by hand to the depth
of fourteen to eighteen inches, throwing on the surface behind him all
the roots, stumps and stones, and stopping occasionally to blast when
the rocks are too large to be pried out. This, of course, is expensive,
and cannot be largely indulged in; but, when accomplished, the work is
done for all time, and I have obtained at once by this method some
splendid soil, in which the plow sinks to the beam. A drought must be
severe, indeed, that can injure such land.
There is a great difference in men in the performance of this work. I
have one who, within a reasonable time, would trench a farm. Indeed, in
his power to obey the primal command to "subdue the earth," my man,
Abraham, is a hero--although, I imagine, he scarcely knows what the
word means and would as soon think of himself as a hippopotamus. His
fortunes would often seem as dark as himself to those who "take thought
for the morrow;" and that is saying much, for Abraham is "colored" as
far as man can be.
I doubt whether his foresight often reaches further than bedtime, and
to that hour he comes with an honest right to rest. He is a family man,
and has six or seven children, under eight years of age, whom he
shelters in a wretched little house that appears tired of standing up.
But to and from this abode Abraham passes daily, with a face as serene
as a May morning. In that weary old hovel I am satisfied that he and
his swarming little brood have found what no architect can build--a
home. Thither he carries his diurnal dollar, when he can get it, and on
it they all manage to live and grow fat. He loses time occasionally, it
is true, through illness, but no such trifling misfortune can induce
him, seemingly, to take a long, anxious look into the future. Only
once--it was last winter--have I seen him dismayed by the frowning
fates. The doctor thought his wife would die, and they had nothing to
eat in the house. When Abraham appeared before me at that time, "his
countenance was fallen," as the quaint, strong language of Scripture
expresses it. He made no complaints, however, and indulged in no
Byronic allusions to destiny. Indeed, he said very little, but merely
drooped and cowered, as if the wolf at the door and the shadow of death
within it were rather more than he could face at one and the same time.
It soon became evident, however, that his wife would "pull through," as
he said, and then the wolf didn't trouble him a mite. He installed
himself as cook, nurse, and house man-of-all-work, finding also
abundant leisure to smoke his pipe with infinite content. One morning
he was seen baking buckwheat cakes for the children; each one in turn
received an allowance on a tin plate, and squatted here and there on
the floor to devour it; and, from the master of ceremonies down, there
was not an indication that all was not just as it should be. A few days
later I met him coming back to his work with his pipe in the corner of
his mouth, and the old confident twinkle in his eye as he said,
"Mornin', Bossie." Now, Abraham carries his peculiar characteristics
into grubbing. If I should set him at a hundred-acre field full of
stumps and stones, and tell him to clear it to the depth of two feet,
he would begin without any apparent misgiving, and with no more thought
for the magnitude of his task than he has for the tangled and stubborn
mysteries of life in general, or the dubious question of "what shall be
on the morrow" in his own experience. He would see only the little
strip that he proposed to clear up that day, and would go to work in a
way all his own.
Although not talkative to other people, he is very social with himself,
and, in the early days of our acquaintance, I was constantly misled
into the belief that somebody was with him, and that he was a man of
words rather than work. As soon, however, as I reached a point from
which I could see him, there he would be, alone, bending to his task
with the steady persistence that makes his labor so effective; but, at
the same time, until he saw me he would continue discussing with equal
vigor whatever subject might be uppermost in his mind. I suppose he
scarcely ever takes out a stone or root without apostrophizing,
adjuring, and berating it in tones and vernacular so queer that one
might imagine he hoped to remove the refractory object by magic rather
than by muscle. When the sun is setting, however, and Abraham has
complacently advised himself, "Better quit, for de day's done gone, and
de ole woman is arter me, afeared I've kivered myself up a-grubbin',"
one thing is always evident--a great many stones and roots are
"unkivered," and Abraham has earned anew his right to the title of
champion grubber.
But, as most men handle the pick and shovel, the fruit grower must be
chary in his attempts to subdue the earth with those old-time
implements. It is too much like making war with the ancient Roman short
sword in an age of rifled guns. I agree with that practical
horticulturist, Peter Henderson, that there are no implements equal to
the plow and subsoiler, and, in our broad and half-occupied country, we
should be rather shy of land where these cannot be used.
The cultivator whose deep moist loam is covered by sod only, instead of
rocks, brush, and trees, may feel like congratulating himself on the
easy task before him; and, indeed, where the sod is light,
strawberries, and especially the larger small fruits, are often planted
on it at once with fair success. I do not recommend the practice; for,
unless the subsequent culture is very thorough and frequent, the grass
roots will continue to grow and may become so intertwined with those of
the strawberry that they cannot be separated. Corn is probably the best
hoed crop to precede the strawberry. Potatoes too closely resemble this
fruit in their demand for potash, and exhaust the soil of one of the
most needed elements. A dressing of wood ashes, however, will make good
the loss. Buckwheat is one of the most effective means of subduing and
cleaning land, and two crops can be plowed under in a single summer.
Last spring I had some very stiff marsh sod turned over and sown with
buckwheat, which, in our hurry, was not plowed under until considerable
of the seed ripened and fell. A second crop from this came up at once,
and was plowed under when coming into blossom, as the first should have
been. The straw, in its succulent state, decayed in a few days, and by
autumn my rough marsh sod was light, rich, and mellow as a garden,
ready for anything.
If it should happen that the land designed for strawberries was in
clover, it would make an admirable fertilizer if turned under while
still green, and I think its use for this purpose would pay better than
cutting it for hay, even though there is no better. Indeed, were I
about to put any sod land, that was not very stiff and unsubdued, into
small fruits, I would wait till whatever herbage covered the ground was
just coming into flower, and then turn it under. The earlier growth
that precedes the formation of seed does not tax the soil much, but
draws its substance largely from the atmosphere, and when returned to
the earth while full of juices, is valuable. In our latitude this can
usually be done by the middle of June, and if on this sod buckwheat is
sown at once, it will hasten the decay, loosen and lighten the soil in
its growth, and in a few weeks be ready itself to increase the
fertility of the field by being plowed under. In regions where farmyard
manure and other fertilizers are scarce and high, this plowing under of
green crops is one of the most effective ways both of enriching and
preparing the land; and if the reader has no severer labors to perform
than this, he may well congratulate himself.
But let him not be premature in his self-felicitation, for he may find
in his sod ground, especially if it be old meadow land, an obstacle
worse than stumps and stones--the Lachnosterna fusca.
This portentous name may well inspire dread, for the thing itself can
realize one's worst fears. The deep, moist loam which we are
considering is the favorite haunt of this hateful little monster, and
he who does not find it lying in wait when turning up land that has
been long in sod, may deem himself lucky. The reader need not draw a
sigh of relief when I tell him that I mean merely the "white grub," the
larva of the May-beetle or June-bug, that so disturbs our slumbers in
early summer by its sonorous hum and aimless bumping against the wall.
This white grub, which the farmers often call the "potato worm," is, in
this region, the strawberry's most formidable foe, and, by devouring
the roots, will often destroy acres of plants. If the plow turns up
these ugly customers in large numbers, the only recourse is to
cultivate the land with some other crop until they turn into beetles
and fly away. This enemy will receive fuller attention in a later
chapter.
It is said that this pest rarely lays its eggs in plowed land,
preferring sod ground, where its larvae will be protected from the
birds, and will find plenty of grass roots on which to feed. Nature
sees to it that white grubs are taken care of, but our Monarch
strawberries need our best skill and help in their unequal fight; and
if "Lachnos" and tribe should turn out in force, Alexander himself
would be vanquished.