October 20, 1863. 



JOURNAL OF HOKTICULTUEE AND COTTAGE GAEDENEE. 



305 



WEEKLY CALENDAR. 



OCTOBEK 20-26, 1863. 



Wood Pigeon airivee. 



Sun's-declin. 10° 38' s. 



R. CunniDgham died, 1835. Bot. 



Short-eared owl comes. 



J. Sowerby died, 1822. Bot. 



21 Sunday aftkb Tkinity. 



Whitethorn leaves tail. 



Rain in 



last 

 36 years. 



Days. 

 15 

 15 

 20 

 20 

 IS 

 17 

 14 



Sna 



Rises. 



ni. h. 

 34af 

 35 6 



Sun 



Sets. 



m. h. 

 56af4 



.Moon 

 Rises. 



Moon 



Sets. 



m. h. 



52 11 



morn. 



11 1 



28 2 



44 3 



2 5 



17 6 



Moon's 

 Age. 



Clock 

 after 

 Sun. 



9 

 10 

 11 

 12 

 13 



o 



15 a 3 

 15 13 

 15 22 

 15 31 

 15 39 

 15 46 



Day ci 



Year. 



294 

 295 

 296 

 297 



From observations taken near London during the last thirty-six years the average day temperatme of tlie week is 57 4S and it» night 

 temperature 39.8°. The greatest heat i,as 73', on the 21st, 1831 ; aJld the lowest cold, 17°. on the 2.3rd, 1859. The gieatesl tall of ram 

 was 0.96 inch. 



HOW TO GEOW STKAWBEEEIES 

 SUCCESSFULLY. 



HOUGH I take up my pen witli 

 the intention of writing; a brief 

 article on the above subject, it is 

 not in the hope of communicating 

 anything new, nor yet of pre- 

 senting an old subject in a new 

 dress ; but having been success- 

 ful in producing fine fruit and 

 heavy crops, I think my mode of 

 practice may be interesting to some of the 

 readers of The Jouenal of Hokticultuee. 

 In order to grow superior Strawberries it 

 is necessary to lay a good foundation, or the 

 after-management will prove a faQure. The first point 

 which I consider demands attention is the preparation 

 of the soil. This should be done in the winter. Many 

 Strawberry-growers put off this important operation 

 ■until July or August, when they are about to form their 

 new plantations, which I consider a mistake. I prefer 

 selecting the piece of ground on which it is intended 

 to grow Strawberries in the early part of the winter. 

 When the weather is tolerably dry, or, what is better 

 still, rather frosty, it should be trenched to the depth of 

 from 24 to 30 inches. The Strawberry delights in a 

 deep, loamy, or rather adhesive soil, and where light and 

 sandy it may be trenched to the depth of 3 feet with 

 advantage. 



I need not enter into details respecting the operation 

 of trenching. SufBce it to say that, during the opera- 

 tion, dung should be supplied with an unsparing hand. 

 I invariably place plenty of coarse manure at the bottom 

 of the trench and part of the way up, and some which is 

 more decomposed nearer the surface : the coarse manure 

 becomes decayed before the roots get down to it. 



Having finished the trenching and left the surface 

 rough, it may lie fallow and exposed to the fertilising 

 influences of frost and snow until the following spring. 

 It may then be planted with a crop of early Potatoes or 

 early Cauliflowers, which can be cleared away before the 

 ground is wanted for the Strawberries. 



The Potatoes or Cauliflowers being all removed, the 

 ground must receive another surface-dressing of good 

 rotten stable-dung and be carefully dug over, well in- 

 corporating the dung in the upper portion of the soil 

 during the digging. 



The ground being ready, next comes under consider- 

 ation the propagation of the plants. Care should be 

 taken in the selection of runners, those only being em- 

 ployed that are stout and healthy, with a round plump 

 bud in the centre, and they must be from vigorous- 

 fruiting plants. This is better than taking plants at 

 random, for I believe that barren plants produce a barren 

 progeny. 



The runners must be layered in large 48-pot8, well 

 drained, and filled with a rich loamy soil mixed with 

 No. 134— Vol. V,, New Series. 



rotten dung, and they must not be allowed to suffer for 

 want of water. They will make rapid progress in this 

 rich compost ; and as soon as they are fairly rooted 

 they may be severed from the parent plants and placed' 

 in a shady situation until the pots are tolerably full of 

 roots, when they must be planted immediately. My 

 practice is to plant them in beds, two rows in a bed, 

 with an alley between each bed. The beds are made 

 3| feet wide, and the alleys '2i feet. Each plant is 

 placed 3 feet apart in the rows in half-quincunx order 

 —thus . ■ . and the rows on the bed are 2| feet a,sunder. 

 This leaves the rows at each side of the bed 3i feet from 

 each other. By so planting a little more space is left be- 

 tween each bed to walk on without treading on the fruit. 

 But whether the ground is formed into beds or not, 

 which is simply a matter of choice, the plants must 

 have plenty of space. If they are in rows, the ground- 

 not being formed into beds, each row must be 3 feet 

 apart, and the plants at the least 3 feet asunder in the 

 rows. Strawberries highly cultivated want plenty of 

 room to develops themselves, and they will well repay 

 the cultivator for his liberal treatment. They must be 

 freely supplied with water during dry weather to en- 

 courage a free and vigorous growth. The plants must 

 also be kept free from runners, and the ground clear of 

 weeds. 



Now, if attention has been paid to every particular, 

 we may look for a very respectable crop of fruit in the 

 following year. The crop will be the heaviest the second 

 year, but we have the largest berries the first season. 



The British Queen produced with us this last summer 

 fruit averaging about twenty to the pound. We had 

 single berries weighing about 1 oz. each, and which were 

 from .5 to 7 inches in circumference. One very impor- 

 tant point I noticed last summer in the propagation of 

 the plants : those runners placed in the largest pots 

 made by far the largest plants, and bore double the 

 quantity of fruit that those placed in small pots did. 

 Hence I recommend the runners to be placed in large 

 48-pots filled with rich compost, in preference to layering 

 them in pots of smaller dimensions. 



I will now advert to the management of Strawberries 

 during their growing and resting season. Early in the 

 spring they must receive a thorough good cleaning ; 

 every dead and decaying leaf must be removed, every 

 runner carefully cut away, and the ground well hoed 

 and cleared of all weeds. This operation must not only 

 be attended to once, but as the runners appear they 

 must be cut off unless required for propagation. It has 

 been a question with some people whether runners do 

 not support the parent plant. 'J his I consider is a mis- 

 take. There can be no doubt that every runner abstracts 

 until it has become rooted much support from its parent ; 

 and the production of runners, like that of seeds of any 

 kind, is an effort of nature to reproduce its own species. 



As soon as the plants are in bloom some protecting 



material should be placed beneath the trusses of bloom 



to prevent the fruit from being injured by heavy rain. 



Some gardeners use clean straw, othcr.^ apply litter from 



No. 780.— Vol. XXX., Olb Sehies. 



