246 FRUIT CULTURE UNDER GLASS. 



if he fancies them, grow a few dozen strawberries on 

 the shelves near the glass, where he can get several 

 dishes before they can be gathered out of doors. The 

 same can be accomplished in a cold frame, where sun- 

 heat can be taken advantage of, by being shut up 

 early in the afternoons in April and May, and covered 

 at night to prevent the heat from declining so low as 

 in uncovered frames. A well -fruited pot of straw- 

 berries makes a most pleasing dinner-table plant, with 

 its green massive leaves and tempting fruit. 



TYING UP THE FRUIT-STALKS, ETC. 



Some of those varieties, such as President and 

 British Queen, which throw up their fruit on long 

 and more slender footstalks, require to have their 

 trusses supported, otherwise, as the fruit become 

 heavy, they weigh down the stem, and it not unfre- 

 quently gets bent and bruised on the edge of the 

 pot, and the fruit is thereby hindered from swelling 

 so well. Where they are grown in rows on shelves, 

 a good way of supporting them is to fix short stout 

 stakes in every fourth or sixth pot, and run a piece of 

 thick soft twine along, on which the trusses can rest ; 

 or each truss can be tied to a slender stake. 



Immediately the fruit are all gathered, the plants 

 should be removed to cold frames or to some sheltered 

 corner, where they can be protected from spring 

 frosts, and hardened off preparatory to their being 

 planted out for bearing outdoor crops, which they 

 produce in first-rate style the following summer, and 

 a few that same autumn. 



