EDITOR'S TABLE. 



Asparagus, Rhubarb, Gooseberries, and Currants, should all be planted in the fall, and 

 as early as possible. Also, hardy bulbs, such as Hyacinths, Tulips, Narcissus, Crocus, 

 Crown Imperials, and Lilies.' It is also the best season to top-dress and renovate neglected 

 trees of all sorts, — to make new walks and repair old ones — to lay down turf, and perform 

 such operations as grading, draining, trenching, &c., incident to the formation of new gar- 

 dens, lawns, &c. Our springs are short, and hot summer weather very often comes too 

 soon. It is therefore well to make a good use of every hour between this time and the 

 freezing of the ground. 



Strawberry Culture. — A correspondent of " The Country Gentleman''' thinks the plan 

 we recommended, in the August number, of planting in rows, " radically defective," and 

 declares himself in favor of beds; but we must let him speak for himself: 



" I have sold about three thousand ijuarts this season, mostly Hovey's, and many of them were 

 an inch and five-eighths in diameter, and they were grown on beds two and a half feet wide, and 

 averaging a plant to every five or six inches on the bed. I am not an advocate of letting all the 

 runners grow till they have made the bed one solid mat, but do contend that Strawberries may 

 and should be grown in beds, because it is attended with less trouble, and vastly more worth can 

 be obtained from an acre, for I have grown at the rate of seventeen hundred dollars to the acre 

 at twenty-five cents a quart, and I know of others doing as well. 



" And here let me say that I have never protected my beds in winter, or mulched the alleys 

 in summer ; nor have I ever had any trouble in selling them, but could to-day engage the next 

 year's crop to any fruit dealer iu our market ; which by the way knocks down, I think, another 

 position taken by the Editor, which is, that every system of culture which stops short of stirring 

 the soil around each plant is defective. It seems to me perfectly clear that to put-out Strawberry 

 plants three feet by eighteen inches, would require five acres to get as much worth as can be 

 obtained from one acre of beds properly managed ; besides it is no small operation to cut straw 

 to mulch ten or twelve acres. And here I will say that I do not know of a single horticulturist 

 in this vicinity but what cultivates in beds, and I should be willing to have our exhibitions com- 

 pared with those that are grown in rows. 



" My advice to those who intend to put out Strawberries for field culture, is, to put out your 

 plants as early in April as the ground will do to work, in rows two feet apart, and one foot in 

 the row, and let the runners take possession of every other space until the plants will average 

 one to every five or six inches, and not to allow runners or anything else to take possession after 

 that. I would not set myself up as possessing all knowledge on the subject of Strawberry cul- 

 ture, but have given my experience, which, if good for anything, can be adopted — if worthless 

 rejected. Practical. — New Haven, Ct. 



Now, Mr. Practical may be right, but we must say that we have very seldom seen bed 

 culture produce fine fruit, except perhaps the first season. He agrees with us in not letting 

 the runners grow into a " solid mat," and it is because in beds they are generally allowed 

 to grow so, and difficult to jirevcnt from growing so, that we cannot approve of the method. 

 It seems to us that it would involve some labor to keep plants in a led thinned out to the 

 distance of five or six inches. Every cidtivator knows how all fruit-bearing plants are 

 affected by keeping the ground open, clean, and friable, around them. During the past dry 

 summer, we have seen leJs utterly burnt up, while rows with the ground worked about 

 them did not suffer in the least. 



