120 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN 



lovely tall cane that grows in the ditches in Italy. But 

 beware how you move it, if once you get it to grow ; it 

 does not at all like being disturbed. Acanthus in full 

 sun is very handsome, and grows large in rather a 

 moist place ; so does the Giant Parsnip, but it is only a 

 biennial. 



June 9th. The Strawberry season is beginning. For 

 many years this fruit was poison to me ; now it gives me 

 pleasure to think that I live almost entirely upon it for 

 some weeks in the summer, eating it three times a day, 

 and very little else, according to the practice of Linnaeus, 

 as quoted in March. It is of great importance that anyone 

 who has room to grow Strawberries at all should grow 

 several varieties early, medium, or late (see catalogues). 

 For ices, creams, jams, &c., I greatly recommend some of 

 the high-flavoured, old-fashioned Hautboys ; they are not 

 very easy to get. The fruit grown on heavy soils round 

 London for the market is often very tasteless ; but one 

 must work away with books and experience to get good 

 Strawberries and a fairly long succession of them. In 

 growing Strawberries, everything depends on making 

 some new rows every year ; layering the runners early, 

 too, makes a great difference in the young plants the 

 next year. ' Dainty Dishes ' has some instructive old- 

 fashioned receipts for Strawberry jam. Strawberries make 

 an excellent compote if boiling syrup is poured over 

 them. Raspberries are much better treated in this way. 

 Currants require stewing. It improves all summer 

 compotes to ice them well before serving. 



I do not at all despise planting out the old-fashioned 

 scarlet and crimson Geraniums Pelargoniums, they ought 

 to be called. Old plants are very much better than the 

 small cuttings ; but I have a few of these as well, and pots 

 full of cuttings of the sweet-leaved kinds, of which there 

 are so many varieties, and which are planted out the first 



