CHAP. IT. DESSERT FRUITS. 251 



which, however, it is unquestionably very inferior. It is a long 

 sugar-loaf-fornied fruit. 



The time for planting out young Strawberry-plants is about 

 the beginning of October. I have put them out a month earlier 

 than this, but without advancing the growth of the plants in the 

 slightest degree. The finest fruit in England is obtained from 

 plants of two years old. But in this country it seems all but 

 universally agreed that young plants only of the current year's 

 growth can be employed with success. 



Having chosen a piece of ground fully exposed to the snn, dig 

 rows of holes in it eight inches in diameter and six inches deep, 

 the holes a foot apart, and the rows also a foot asunder. Between 

 each third row make a small raised path ten inches wide to give 

 access to the plants. Fill the holes with a mixture of equal parts 

 of old cow-manure, leaf mould, and common soil, and in each 

 put down a Strawberry-plant. Water the plants at the time, and 

 as often afterwards as they seem to require it. When they have 

 become well established, they will perhaps begin to send out 

 runners. These it would be well to remove, though some persons 

 are of opinion that the doing so causes a larger development of 

 leaves than is favourable to the productiveness of the plants. 

 By February they will have become good large plants, and may 

 be expected then to be in full blossom. But at this period, in 

 the vicinity of Calcutta at least, the cultivator often meets with 

 considerable disappointment. Sometimes the plants will expend 

 themselves only in leaves, and produce no flowers, or will 

 exhaust themselves in putting forth flowers in unbounded 

 profusion, and not set a single fruit. 



On first observing the flowers die off without being productive, 

 I imagined they must be such as contained only stamens, or 

 male organs, as it is well known often happens in Europe, and 

 indeed always so with the Hautbois, which bears the male 

 and female organs on distinct plants. But on examination I 

 found the flowers to contain both sexual organs. Such plants 

 as bore fruit I noticed did so invariably only on footstalks which 

 supported but one single flower. But to what to attribute the 

 general barrenness of the plants, that so often occurs, I have 

 altogether failed in ascertaining. In England, however, it is 

 believed that a fall of rain when the plants are in bloom is 

 essential to the setting of the fruit. This rarely happens in 



