the land. The soil becomes as exhausted as a man would be should he
seek to labor under the support of stimulants only. In both instances,
an abundance of food is needed. A quinine pill is not a dinner, and a
dusting of guano or phosphate cannot enrich the land.

And yet, by the aid of these stimulating commercial fertilizers, the
poorest and thinnest soil can be made to produce fine strawberries, if
sufficient moisture can be maintained. Just as a physician can rally
an exhausted man to a condition in which he can take and be
strengthened by food, so land, too poor and light to sprout a pea, can
be stimulated into producing a meagre green crop of some kind, which,
plowed under, will enable the land to produce a second and heavier
burden. This, in turn, placed in the soil, will begin to give a
suggestion of fertility. Thus, poor or exhausted soils can be made, by
several years of skilful management, to convalesce slowly into
strength.

Whether such patient outlay of time and labor will pay on a continent
abounding in land naturally productive is a very dubious question.

Coarse, gravelly soils are usually even worse. If we must grow our
strawberries on them, give the same general treatment that I have just
suggested.

On some peat soils the strawberry thrives abundantly; on others it
burns and dwindles. Under such conditions I should experiment with
bone-dust, ashes, etc., until I found just what was lacking.

No written directions can take the place of common-sense, judgment,
and, above all, experience. Soils vary like individual character. I