164 Method of Planting 



will convince any person of the cause of the numerous worthless 

 yet thrifty looking strawberry beds throughout our gardens. 



The finest of the large English varieties of this fruit which 

 we cultivate here is the Bishop's. It is remarkably large, a most 

 abundant bearer, and of superior flavor. Many of the larger ber- 

 ried sorts, as the Methven Castle, have been hollow and com- 

 paratively tasteless, though of uncommon size. This variety, 

 however, appears to us to unite all that can be desired, to con- 

 stitute a truly fine and delicious strawberry. 



A. J. D. 



Art. II. Method of Planting the Forty-fold Potato, as prac- 

 tised by Mr. Burns^ late gardener at Elm Hill, Roxbury. 

 Communicated by Mr. Burns. 



We have already said so mtich respecting this potato, and 

 have praised its qualities — its earliness, productiveness and gen- 

 eral character, as a superior variety — so often, that it may seem 

 but mere repetition to add anything further in relation to it. But 

 although it is now tolerably well known, and its cultivation some- 

 what extensively disseminated, still there is wanting some knowl- 

 edge to grow large and fine specimens. Some cultivators who 

 have tried them have almost given up their growth, on account 

 of the great profusion of small ones which they often pro- 

 duce, on whatever kind of soil or in whatever situation they may 

 have been planted. All who have tried them acknowledge their 

 superior qualities, but having failed, for some reasons, to procure 

 large potatoes, have become prejudiced against them; but their 

 great reluctance to part with a variety excelling, certainly, any of 

 our old sorts, has alone induced them to continue their cultiva- 

 tion, though attended with only partial success. 



The great fault in the cultivation of the forty-fold potato 

 seems to have been the planting of too many in a hill; observing 

 the same system as is practised with the more common kinds, 

 that is, planting from two to four in a hill, or strewing them very 

 thickly in rows. This mode will not answer for this variety; 

 but, on the contrary, wherever more than one has been planted 

 in a hill, in every instance which has come to our knowledge, 

 the potatoes have been extremely small, yielding in number more 

 than an hundred fold, but not producing scarcely one sufficiently 



