GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Aug. 



how to do everv thing. Well, he said in his 

 circular that he had adopted a new way of 

 raising strawberries. They don't have any 

 old hard beds at all, so full of weeds, and 

 the ground so hard tliat it is more work 

 to pull the weeds out than to plow up an acre 

 of ground. Tlie new way is to raise straw- 

 berries just as you do cabbages— get a crop, 

 and have it done witli, and then have your 

 next bed somewhere else, and so on. I sent 

 and got the little book I told you of in the 

 July number, " Garden and Farm Topics," 

 and this book told me just how to do it. 



I wonder how many of the friends know 

 about strawberries. These, like all other 

 l)lauts, seem to have a great fondness for 

 perpetuating their si)ecies. First they bear a 

 crop of fruit, and the fruit contains seeds. 

 These seeds, if planted, will produce little 

 strawberry plants. But this is not all. Aft- 

 er the mother-plant has borne a nice crop of 

 fruit, as if she were not satisfied with that 

 effort, she just shoots out little runners. 

 Did you ever see a strawberry runner V If 

 you never have, suppose you take a look at 

 one. If you do not have any at your house, 

 very likely you will find some at the neigh- 

 bors'. After the runner has gone out and 

 started (and they grow very rapidly, I tell 

 you), a little bud, or knot, is formed, and 

 from this some bright green leaves shootout. 

 Huber and I call them baby-leaves. Well, 

 after the leaf has come out, the little bud 

 settles down against the ground, and then a 

 delicate little white rootlet, almost as pretty 

 as a babj's foot (after he has pulled his 

 shoe and stocking oft) pushes itself out 

 and begins to feel around in the ground. 

 What do you suppose it does that for V 

 Why, it is nosing about for something to eat. 

 When it finds it, more little roots come out, 

 and pretty soon it gets so strongly braced 

 and rooted that it lets go of its mamma, and 

 l)ecomPS a plant itself. After I had read 

 Peter Henderson's wonderful story about it, 

 I went ofit into the garden where Ilenry was 

 at work, and commenced : 



"Henry, do you know any thing about 

 raising strawberry plants in pots V " 



" To be sure ; have raised thousands." 



And he kept right on with his spading, 

 without saying any thing more. 



" Well, Iienry, is there time to do it now?" 



" Just the time exactly ; but, where are 

 your runners ? " 



I told him I had seen a few out among 

 the rye stubble, but he thought it would not 

 pay to bother with them. 



" But, Ilenry, we are not caring to make 

 money just now exactly, and we should like 

 to see it done with those poor plants out 

 there, even if it does not pay.' 



He suggested that he might dig around 

 them, and give them some bone dust, and 

 may be we could get some good plants, if I 

 wanted to see it done. So we went to work. 

 We had a few little pots in the greenhouse, 

 about three inches across. We took these 

 and got some rich black dirt that the chil- 

 dren had brought from the woods for theii- 

 flower-garden. Some bone dust was stirred 

 thoroughly through this black dirt, and then 

 the little pots were filled up to the brim. In 

 looking over the rye-stubble patch we found 



more plants than we expected. The season 

 was terribly dry, and every thing was parch- 

 ed up. But it was funny to see an old straw- 

 berry plant, with hardly a breath of life in 

 it, all dried and shriveled up, giving its life 

 energies to keep some little bit of a plant 

 bright and green, that stood perhaps a foot 

 away among the weeds. A little slender 

 thread of a runner reached back to the 

 mother-plant, and there she was, giving her 

 life-blood to keep her offspring alive and 

 growing. I called mamma and the children 

 to look at it, and then laughingly suggested 

 that that was a good deal the way mamma 

 was wearing herself out to take care of us 

 children. We called Iluber the strawberry 

 plant, and mamma the old root. Come to 

 think of it, there is a pair of "old Roots,'" and 

 1 believe both of us take as much pleasure in 

 seeing baby Huber grow and thrive as 

 does that poor old mother strawberry plant 

 in seeing her oftspring make a good stout 

 healthy plant. I wonder if children often 

 tliink of trying to repay the sacrifices and 

 privations their parents make for their 

 sakes. 



In our next Sabbath-school lesson we have 

 a text that is something like this: 



Honor thy father and thy mother; that thy days 

 may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God 

 giveth thee.— Ex. 20: 12. 



Henry fixed the plants, quite a lot of them. 

 He buried the pots in the ground clear up to 

 their brims, and took one of these little run- 

 ners and set a little plant in the center of 

 i the pot. To keep it in place he laid a little 

 stone on the rvmner to keep it down. Of 

 course, I had to fix some too, but I thought 

 it was too much trouble to lunit for stones, 

 and so I took hard lumps of dirt. When a 

 rain came, however, my lumps of dirt 

 washed to pieces, and the "wind blew my lit- 

 tle plants out of place, so I thought I would 

 do as Ilenry did next time, even if I couldn't 

 see the reason for it. 



It was a good while before we had any 

 rain, so we watered the little plants, and their 

 mammas too, for several days. Some of the 

 mother-plants furnished runners for half a 

 dozen or more pots, and they looked comical 

 enough with their children clustered all 

 around them. Under the influence of the 

 bone dust and the watering, they soon began 

 to show beautiful little new green leaves, 

 that somehow have seemed to rest me just to 

 look at them. I have been working among 

 them, loosening the ground, and pulling out 

 the weeds, and handling the foliage, the last 

 thing at night before I go to bed, and then 

 again I am with them in the morning before 

 the sun is up. Now, it would very likely 

 have been cheaper in one sense of the word 

 to have bought plants already potted; but 

 some way I always enjoyed taking care of 

 what I had already, instead of allowing it to 

 go to waste, a great deal better than buying 

 things new. Some of the little plants that 

 we started first have filled their pots witli 

 roots, and the roots are growing out of the 

 pots and going down into the ground. These 

 are now ready to be cut loose from the par- 

 ent plant, if "we wanted to do so; and there 

 you liaye sinice little strong thrifty straw- 



