NEW ZEALAND GARDENING. 59 



Pruning It is good practice to go over the plantation 

 in December and thin out the young suckers or rods of the 

 current year's growth, leaving five or six of the strongest to 

 each stool this will save much work in the Winter pruning, 

 and will materially improve the quality of the fruit. Should 

 this thinning be omitted, as is usually the case in colonial 

 gardens, all the weak shoots must be cut away as soon as the 

 leaves begin to fall, and four or five of the strongest left, 

 which must be shortened one third of their length, leaving 

 the canes from four to five feet long, according to growth. 

 The wood which has borne fruit this year must also be cut 

 away. Tie the canes in bunches of four or five. Plantations 

 may be made any time from May till August If properly 

 attended to in the matter of thinning, pruning, and manuring, 

 a plantation will last for ten or a dozen years. The following 

 are good varieties : Red and Yellow Antwerp, Kentish Fill- 

 basket, and Carter's Prolific. 



Strawberries. No plant makes a more profitable 

 return for good treatment and cultivation than the strawberry, 

 although they will grow and fruit in almost any soil and 

 situation, as is evidenced by the unfavourable places one 

 occasionally meets them in, and the conditions under which 

 they exist. To do them really well they require a good, 

 deep loam, resting on a clayey subsoil, as the roots delight 

 in a cool, moist bottom ; and when this can be secured for 

 them, no amount of sunshine will harm them, but, on the 

 contrary, they will be all the better for the exposure, especially 

 as regards the quality and flavour of the fruit. When huddled 

 together, with a mass of foliage overlapping, or grown under 

 the shade of fruit bushes or trees, as is frequently the case, 

 they never attain that degree of perfection they do on a nice, 

 sunny border, or in an open situation in the vegetable 

 quarters of the kitchen garden. Shade is fatal to flavour 

 and the other good qualities for which the strawberries are 

 prized ; for without moderate sunlight the crude juices are 

 not converted into saccharine matter, without which they 

 are little better than so much pulp and water, insipid and 

 flavourless. To grow strawberries to the greatest perfection 

 the beds should be renewed every three or four years, at most. 

 For forming new beds, runners should be taken off the old 



