280 ON THE SUPPOSED INFLUENCE OF THE POLLEN. 



the whole habits of that plant are those of a white pea. The colour of 

 the cotyledons only were, I therefore conceive, changed ; whilst the seed- 

 coats retained their primary degree of whiteness. I must consequently 

 venture to conclude, that the opinions of Mr. Salisbury, quoted by 

 Mr. Goss, which have also very long been mine, viz. that neither the 

 colour of the seed-coats, nor the form, taste, or flavour of fruits, are 

 ever affected by the immediate influence of the pojlen of a plant of 

 another variety or species, are well-founded. 



I need not add, that Mr. Seton's experiment mentioned in the note to 

 Mr. Goss's paper, is also most perfectly accurate ; though the results 

 differed from those obtained by Mr. Goss, owing, I imagine, to the 

 greater permanence of colour in the cotyledons of the green Imperial 

 pea, which was the subject of his experiments. 



LV. ON THE PREPARATION OF STRAWBERRY PLANTS FOR EARLY 



FORCING. 



[Read before the HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY, March 16th, 1824.] 



THE method of preparing strawberry plants for early forcing, by 

 putting the plants into pots a year, or longer, before they are intended to 

 afford fruit, is generally perfectly successful, and is in every respect 

 eligible, except that it requires a good deal of time and trouble. For if 

 the pots be not regularly watered during the summer after the plants are 

 put into them, the size of the future fruit will be considerably reduced ; 

 and if during the following winter the pots be not carefully protected from 

 excess of moisture and frost, a great part of the fibrous roots, which lie 

 in contact with the internal surface of the pots, will be found lifeless in 

 the spring ; and many of the pots, if their quality be not very good, will 

 be broken by the expansion of the frozen water. 



The minute fibrous roots of trees (the chevelu of the French writers) 

 have been pronounced by them, and by all the naturalists of this country, 

 who have written upon the subject, to be, like the leaves of deciduous plants, 

 annual productions only : and such is the opinion of Duhamel, or rather 

 his decision respecting facts within his own observation ; for he rarely, if 

 ever, favours his readers with his opinions. If the fibrous roots of plants, 

 which have, like the strawberry plant, the whole habits of trees, be 

 annual productions only;, any effort to preserve them through the winter 

 must be useless ; but I deny the fact of their being annual productions 



