our fields a
good distance from the old bed. What shall be done with the old bed? If
you have insects or rust plow under and get the best place to start a
new bed, and don't set any of your own plants if you have insects or
rust--and be sure you buy of a reliable grower.

_Old Beds._ If the first crop is big, plow under, if light and you have
a good stand of plants, no insects or rust, you can mow and teddy up the
mulch and in a high wind burn it over--a quick fire will do no harm.
Then you can plow two furrows between rows and drag it every way till
not a plant is seen. Soon, if the rows are left a foot wide, the plants
will come through. Then manure (better be manured before plowing), and
you may get a good second crop. Some mow and rake off and burn outside
the bed, then with a two horse cultivator dig up the paths and cultivate
and get the ground in condition. Put on the manure and hoe out part of
the old plants.

I like the plan of Wildhagen; mow, burn and then cover three inches deep
with one hundred big loads of manure to the acre and don't go near the
patch till picking time next year. He gets a nice early crop, and if
berries are a little small it pays better than any other way. Try it! I
have known some fields carried to fourth crop, and amateur beds kept up
for ten years. It takes lots of work to keep an old bed in good
condition. J.M. Smith, of Green Bay, Wis., almost always took one crop
and plowed under. If the first crop was injured by frost, he took a
second crop. He raised four hundred bushels to the acre.

Wm. Von Baumbach, of Wauwatosa, Wis., raised from five acres less ten
square rods seventeen hundred bushels big measure beside quantities
given the pickers. I have had beds and fields where I have timed my boys
picking a quart a minute. I had one small boy that picked 230 quarts a
day. But in all my sixty years growing strawberries I never properly
prepared an acre of ground before planting. I could take a five acre
patch now, as young as I am, and beat anything I have ever done.

_Mulch._--For mulch for small beds, if straw or marsh hay is not handy,
use an inch of leaves, then cut your sweet corn and lay the stalks on
three inches apart and your plants will come up between in spring and
give you clean fruit. Cut cornstalks are good for field covering, also
shredded cornstalks. I have used the begass from the cane mill, but it
is too heavy. Evergreen boughs are very good if well put on for small