The Portland daily press., 1898-12-13
MuLCHlNG STRAWBERRIES.
One Way of Doing 1t with Forest
Lcnves-Other Good Materials.

Lcaves-Other Good Materials.
In quite long experience in berry
culture, w. Fl. Jenkins, a writer in
Country Gentleman, has found mulch
ing the plants necessary to the best sue
cess. A strawberry bed that is we'll
mulched is usually much more profit
able. The plants do not heave out be-
cause Of the ground freezing and Shaw
ing during, the winter. The mulch helps
to keep the weeds from growing, keeps
the ground from baking, retains mois-
ture in time of drought, and it may
make the difference between success and
failure. Mr.. Jenkins says:
For mulching the straw berry have
sometimes used stable manure, but it
contains SO many weed seeds that l
shall not use it this fall unless it comes
from my stable. The horse manure
which I have obtained at the livery
stables and hotels has seeded the beds
with grass and sorrei. I have always
noticed that wherever / have used this
manure for mulching in the summer
between rows of plants the grass always
grew up thiekly in a short time 1t re-
quires constant cultivation and wedding
to keep the straw berry beds clean that
are mulohed with such manure, and
greatly increases the cost of growing the
berries.
One plan that / have sometimes prac-
ticed is to gather large quantities Of
forest leaves. In my village the streets
are lined with maple trees, and when
the leaves fall the people are glad to
have them raked from their lawns and
taken away Last fall my man spent
several days drawing leaves. By using
hayrack and lot of large bran sacks
we could draw large loads. We also
sometimes go to the woods two miles
away and draw leaves. We stored a
large quantity in the barn and used
them for bedding the horse, COW and
pig, also for littering the floor of the
hennery, and the manure and leaves
were drawn out during the winter and
applied as a mulch to the strawberry
bed and other small fruits.
Where we used the manure from our
own animals that were bedded with
leaves there were much fewer weeds
than where we spread the manure that
was purchased. The difficulty iD apply
ing the leaves directly to the strawberry
bed is that the wind will blow them off
the plants. This can usually be avoided
by putting the leaves in large piles on
the beds, covering them with boards
to keep them in place. then just before
the beginning Of the first snowstorm
distributing the leaves over the plants
and letting the snow fall on them.
If one has little straw to use with
the leaves, he can spread the leaves any
time and scatter thin layer OF straw
over them, which will help prevent the
leaves blowing away. Twigs broken
from trees may be used to hold the
leaves in place, but it is too much work
to get them for large beds.
The best and cheapest material for
mulohing generally depends on what is
the most easily obtained, that is free
from weed seeds and protects the plants
we'll. If one has or can get cheap straw
or salt hay, it will probably be the most
economical to use. have sometimes
used buokwheat straw, which I bought
Of the farmers for So or So per ton.
There were but few weeds in it. and it
was the cheapest mulching material for
me at that price.