As I had never studied the botanical peculiarities of weeds, and, indeed, had no time for scientific study, having both needle and garden on my hands, I regarded their luxuriant growth in my strawberry-ground only in a strictly practical light. The soil was full of nutriment, as my father had left it very rich. If this nutriment were appropriated by the weeds, it would obviously be so much taken from the strawberries. The latter, moreover, when the fruit was swelling to full size, preparatory to changing color, required all the moisture they could obtain. Now weeds are powerful leeches. Whatever they might suck up would consequently be robbery of the strawberries. Thus as nutriment and moisture would fail the strawberries in exact proportion to the growth of the weeds, the fruit would be small in size and inferior in quality, with a corresponding diminution of the market price. In a dry season these effects would be particularly disastrous. These conditions of successful strawberry-culture I had learned from books, from reflection, and from actual experience. Hence my beds were made scrupulously clean and mellow when the plants were beginning to put forth runners. It was a troublesome matter, for some weeks, to keep them in complete order, requiring an hour or two of hoeing daily; but then I found the labor of weeding lasted only during August, as after that month the growth had so fallen off as to be of little consequence. Scarcely any that started subsequently would find the season long enough to mature the seeds. I frequently managed to obtain a glimpse of what our neighbors were doing, to see how my strawberry-culture compared with theirs. Though the whole family had little else to do than to look after their acre, yet I was quite satisfied with the result of my survey. They had quite as many weeds as myself, with the important difference that they did not seem to mind much about getting rid of them. I presume their uniform success had made them careless and lazy. Their hopes had been fulfilled, while the consummation of mine was yet in the future.
The runner of a strawberry, when projected a certain distance, develops at its extremity a tuft of leaves, and having done so, is impatient to throw out roots immediately below the newly formed tuft. To promote the formation of these, the surface of the ground should be made perfectly loose and mellow, so that the rootlets may enter and descend with facility, thenceforward to ramble in search of nourishment and moisture. Thus cared for, and especially if sunk a little below the surface, and held there with a spoonful of earth, the runners will put forth a mass of snow-white roots with incredible rapidity. In a moist soil, or after a shower of rain, they fasten themselves immediately; and thus ceasing to be drains upon the parent plant, by living and growing from their own daily enlarging roots, they will acquire a size and vigor to insure an abundant crop the following season. The first joint being securely rooted, the runner will go on lengthening into a succession of new ones; and if each be promptly anchored like the first, they will become contemporaneous bearers. As one plant will send forth many runners, the careful cultivator can thus cover his ground with a profusion of the thriftiest vines. But when the surface is permitted to remain hard and compact, baked under the sun or trodden under foot, the delicate rootlets are unable to penetrate the unfriendly mass. They are blown about by the wind, useless exhausters of the parent plant; they change color by exposure to the sun and air, and lose their power of extension. Even under the softening influence of rain, which may enable them to secure some feeble holding-ground, they rarely become vigorous plants, while their multiplication is materially limited. If the surface be overgrown with grass or weeds, the runners can gain no hold; and hence, there being no new plants established, the succeeding crop will be smaller than it might otherwise have been. The vigor of the plant thus created from a runner is altogether dependent on the condition of the surface over which it is first projected, and the promptness with which it is enabled to throw out and fasten its roots in a congenial soil. Nature performs wonders for the strawberry; but human care and skill can multiply its capabilities to an extent which even yet is undetermined.
Acting upon these hints, for which I was again indebted to my invaluable agricultural treasury, I took care that every runner, as soon as it threw out a perfect tuft of leaves, should be let down into a little cavity scooped out by a garden-trowel, and sprinkled with earth enough to keep it down. The instinct of the plant was so nice and active, that, as soon as it came in contact with the moist ground below, it threw out roots and took a fast hold. These nourished it into an independent plant, enabling it to project a new joint, which, being similarly covered, formed another plant. Thus attending to them every day, I not only obtained more than were needed for the yet unoccupied half-acre, but secured plants of so vigorous a growth as to insure a good crop the coming season. The ground was broken up and put in nice order in October. Then, after every rainy day, but especially in damp and drizzly weather, a man who understood the business was employed to transfer the young plants to their new location. It was too great an undertaking for me, though I assisted in the operation. My new bed I made an extension of the old one, and began with those plants which had grown from the runners nearest to the parent. As these had been longest in growing, they were the most thrifty and the best. Taking them up carefully on a trowel, with a ball of earth to each, I carried them one by one to the places previously prepared for them by the gardener, being simple excavations about a foot apart, into which we slipped them directly from the trowel, and then drew the loose earth up around the ball, so as to leave no portion of the roots exposed. By making holes for them, the plants were let down quite level with the surface, just as they had stood before transplanting: for strawberries must never be set on a ridge; since, when thus set, the roots, having two surfaces laid open to the action of the sun and drying winds, become parched by exposure, and the plants will frequently perish in consequence. Moisture is the vital principle of the strawberry. Practically speaking, it may be said to be the only manure it ever requires.
This job cost me some ten dollars for hired help, but the gain was worth all that. Not a single plant showed the slightest sign of wilting. Indeed, there was clear evidence that the whole collection was quite unconscious of any change of place. The first rain closed up all cavities around them, thus effectually repairing damages, and their growth having experienced no check, many of them threw out new runners, as if thinking that I wanted them.
It was not an unfeminine occupation, this setting out a strawberry-bed. Neither did I consider it hard work. We could have done it ourselves, if we could have spared the time. So any family of girls can accomplish the same feat, or even a much greater one, when the masculine portion of the labor, putting the ground in order, has been performed for them. I know it soils one's hands to set out plants in the wet ground; but if one could make choice of the kind of dirt she is to handle, I am sure that this sort is preferable to that set free in washing a pile of greasy dishes, or in standing a whole day over a wash-tub. These being established feminine employments, no one thinks of objecting to them; in fact, the sex seems born to them. But strawberry-planting by a young girl like me is a novelty that some may think requires an apology. Yet so far no one had seemed to consider any apology necessary in my case, except our neighbors, the Tetchys.
Long before we had taken up half the plants required for the new bed, I discovered that there were three or four times as many as we needed. My reading had taught me that one of the mistakes of strawberry-growing was that of crowding too many on the ground. The effect would be to make it impossible to get at the weeds and grass with a hoe. A bed in this condition could not be kept clean. In the end, the interlopers would take complete possession and smother out the strawberries, compelling the owner to plough all in together and start with a new planting. I was puzzled to know what was the best course to adopt. I thought at one time of hoeing up the greater portion of the multitude of plants we had so carefully propagated, treating them as so many weeds, so as to be sure of having a fair chance at the remainder. But they were all so vigorous and healthy that I could not bring my mind to have such extensive waste committed. Fred objected to it most strenuously. He said it was impossible for us to have too much of a good thing, and, as usual came to the rescue with his arithmetic. He made it out that we had so many thousand fine plants that I wanted grubbed up. Then he showed that these, if allowed to produce fruit, would yield us so much money, and that this money would enable us to hire a man to keep the ground in the best order. Besides, he said there was no knowing but we might be able to sell a quantity of them. Fred's figuring—always done on paper—had often disappointed us. But it continued to have some weight with me, notwithstanding. It is probable my reluctance to parting with these fine plants was the real turning-point in this dilemma. I had no hope of finding purchasers for them, though it had once been so difficult for me to find sellers. Nevertheless I followed Fred's advice, thinking this time there might be something in it, and let the plants remain.
All these little matters are the result of personal experience: not, of course, acquired in a single season; for even after the strawberry-grower has planted one bed and harvested one crop, he will discover that he is still only on the threshold of this branch of horticulture. Many of them are the fruit of subsequent experience, while much of all I ever learned is the result of careful study of as many authorities as I was able to consult. Study combined with practice and close observation, together with a passionate determination to learn, and hope ever stimulating to perseverance, has been with me the secret of success. I was now at the close of my first year's experiment. My whole acre was in the best condition. The plants set out the first year were certain to produce twice the former yield, such being the universal experience with the strawberry; while now, with double the extent of ground, and the first half-acre stocked with many times the number of plants originally set, the promise was highly encouraging. I could think of no possible chance of disappointment but a pinching frost that might destroy the blossoms, or a parching drought that might blast the fruit. No work that I had been required to perform had been too hard for me. Most of it had been recreation, while all had been healthful to the body and grateful to the mind. It is true that now and then my hands had been a little roughened by wielding the heavy garden-tools; but we had already determined that our next year's profits should furnish us with new and lighter ones. Thus, satisfied with myself, and buoyant with hope, the winter came upon us; but I passed through it without impatience or anxiety, both my sister and myself continuing the while steadily at the factory.
SCIENTIFIC FARMING.
I went out one morning to build a barn. Not that I knew exactly how to build a barn, but I knew very well how to keep up a mighty clatter, till some one should come that did know, which amounts to the same thing. There was, indeed, already a barn on our plantation. It was there many years before we were. I ought to say, a part of it; for the barn is a conglomerate, the further end stretching far back into antiquity, and the hither end coming down to a period which is within the memory of men still living. Of course its ancient history is involved in obscurity; but as we read in the rocks somewhat of the earth's otherwise unwritten story, so in our barn are many marks which point out to the curious student the different eras of its creation. The main line of demarcation comes in the centre, and consists chiefly of a kind of bulge. That part of the front which dates back to the Lower Silurian epoch ran south-southwest, but at some time during the Drift period it turned to the right about and drifted to the north-northeast. The result is a bold front, subtending an obtuse angle. People who have nothing else in the world to annoy them might afford to be annoyed by this departure from a right line; but unless one is reduced to such straits, he will do well to call it a bow-window, and be at rest,—which, indeed, it is, only the window is a little to the windward of the bow.