It is quite impossible to keep the fruit of the Strawberry free from sand without placing something or other underneath it. Of all the different materials used I consider that bark is best. I have used many. For instance, drain-pipes placed along each side the row, and the fruit-stalk resting upon them, was a system long practised in this neighbourhood. Slates and paling placed upon bricks, or small fir-branches stuck in the ground, and the fruit-stalk hanging over them. Still a great part of the crop was rendered useless. Grass-mowings or moss answer better; but if the season be wet, it soon rots and has a very unsightly appearance - in fact, at all times when it is dried or bleached white: whereas bark,being nearly the colour of the soil, makes it pleasant to the eye, and although it be spread over quite thin, will keep the fruit clean and last the fruiting season. I have noticed after wet days grass-mowings battered to the ground, and they took a long time in drying. Now the bark, being loose, acted like drainage. Whenever the rain was over it was dry, which is the saving of the fruit. It does not encourage slugs or snails as grass-mowings do, and answers as a top-dressing. The Strawberry appears to benefit by it.

I have likewise used straw, but nothing answers so well as bark both for look and purpose. It is very cheap - in many places can be had for nothing, where other material except grass is often very scarce. Grass I consider the worst for the weeds it produces, and the great enemy to Strawberries, slugs, to which it gives shelter. Nobody cares to eat after snails; and to see a large Strawberry pierced through and through by them often draws forth maledictions upon their heads from some of the fair sex, just as if the fine Strawberry was quite unfit for a snail to eat; but eat it he will if he gets the chance, so we must try and give him no shelter. Should any of the readers of the 'Gardener' get but one cartload of bark from the tanyard and try it, I am confident it will give them satisfaction. I have a few rows of Elton Pine Strawberry twelve years old, and they are as healthy and fruit as well as others I have at two years old. After the crop is gathered I fork in the bark and give a slight topdressing of dung well rotted, and there they remain until next fruiting season. I always have succeeded in producing good crops.

Adam Renton.