THE PIvANT WORLD 207 



is demanded. Thinning the young blossoms will also assist in giving 

 superior fruit. As with many other kinds of fruits, care should be exer- 

 cised in picking. A quantity of new baskets should be on hand at the 

 commencement of the season. Don't use leaves to hide the stains from 

 previous use. A picking stand holding a half dozen baskets is one of 

 the greatest helps, which after once using one would not readily dispense 

 with. It is easily made with half a barrel hoop for a handle. It reduces 

 the possibility of disfiguring the fruit, as is the case when a person tries 

 to carry too many baskets at once. Planting may be done in early spring 

 or in August. With pot-grown plants spring is preferred by many when 

 a good supply of plants is obtainable. In good weather the pot-grown 

 plants will produce a good crop the following spring. The duration of 

 the bed will usually be two seasons, depending on the attention and care 

 it has received. Gardeners sometimes allow runners to grow in order to 

 get new plants. This is not good practice ; a portion should be grown 

 for that purpose. Now is the time when much care must be given the 

 strawberry bed or the effects will be noticed next spring. It is not neces- 

 sary to enumerate cultural details with which every gardener is familiar. 

 It may be well to mention, however, that mulching or some kind of win- 

 ter protection should be provided for them, not so much for frost as the 

 alternate thawing and freezing. I^ong straw manure scattered over the 

 bed after the ground has become frozen is a good method. — Francis 

 Canning, in Gardening. 



Paeonia lutea. — A plant of this distinct and rare species is at present 

 in flower in the Himalayan house at Kew, where it is planted out in a 

 border, in a light position among other plants, says a correspondent of 

 the Gardeners' Chronicle of June 11. It was received as a young plant 

 from the Jardin des Plantes, Paris, in 1898, and flowered at Kew for the 

 first time in 1900, when a figure was prepared for the Botatiical Magazine, 

 t. 7788. This species forms a perennial woody stem, after the style of 

 its near relative P. Mo7itan, but does not attain nearly to the dimensions 

 of that species. The Kew plant, although some seven or eight years old, 

 has only formed a woody stem about eight inches high. The greater part 

 of the annual stems dying back to almost the base, the woody stem elon- 

 gates but very little each year. Early in the present spring, when growth 

 should have commenced, for some reason or other the buds on the woody 

 stems refused to start, and it was feared that the plant would die ; but to 

 our surprise several growths appeared from below the surface of the soil, 

 near the base of the old stems, while a few others appeared about two feet 

 away ; these have all grown vigorously and are now just coming into 

 bloom. The flowers are usually solitary and terminal, but occasionally 

 the more vigorous shoots produce two and even three blossoms each. The 

 flowers are of bright yellow color, two and one-half inches in diameter, 



