300 THE GARDENER. [July 



follow oiir second early Potatoes with the Strawberries, and have been 

 as late as September in finishing, but the last-planted plants bore just 

 as well as the first the following season. Our 2)ractice is to put the 

 plants out in a sheltered corner as they have done bearing : if the 

 pots are wanted, the plants are turned out and the balls packed 

 closely together, filling up the crevices with a little fine soil, and in 

 this way they are left till they can be planted out, not forgetting, in 

 the mean time, to water them abundantly. If the ground has been 

 manured heavily for the Potatoes, it is just dug over and the Straw- 

 berries planted at the same time, 18 inches apart between the plants, 

 and 2 feet between the rows. This is ample, for forced plants do not 

 make such growth as permanent ones : neither do they root deeply, 

 for which reason they are somewhat apt to suffer from drought ; but a 

 thick mulching of half-rotted stable-litter put on early in spring pre- 

 vents any risk of this kind, and w^orks little less than a miracle in 

 swelling off the fruit and promoting the general health of the plants. 

 We have often gathered more than a hundredweight of Black Prince 

 from a piece of ground of less than half the extent that permanent 

 plants would require to produce the same, for we plant this variety 

 (forced plants) 1 foot apart between the plants, and 18 inches be- 

 tween the rows. Last year we began planting about the middle of 

 August, and the plants are now perfectly smothered with bloom, and 

 the forced plants of 1871 are but little behind them. I ought to 

 state that when the plants are put out, the old leaves which have been 

 developed in the forcing-house should be shorn clean off, and the balls 

 should be buried as deeply as is possible without burying the crowns 

 altogether. Plants of which the surface-roots are left exposed to the 

 air never do so well. J. Simpson. 



FLOHIST FLOWERS. 

 THE AURICULA. 



Enough to fill volumes has been written concerning the cultivation of 

 this fllower, and it is not to our credit that it holds such a subordinate 

 place in our esteem ; nor are the present generation in a small degree 

 free of culpability in treating with cold neglect countless other species 

 whose excellences constitute them the choicest gems which adorn 

 Flora's crown. But we shall not despond, for the time is fast ap- 

 proaching when there will be no reason to lament their absence. 

 There is now a longing for the flowers that were our pets in our 

 young days. 



These remarks are not intended as a disparagement of the brilliant 



