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LIX. ON THE CULTURE OF STRAWBERRIES. 



[Read before the HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY, May 17 th, 1825.] 



AT the period when, in the last year, I addressed to the Horticultural 

 Society some observations upon the culture of different species and 

 varieties of strawberries*, I had seen the successful result of other 

 experiments ; but as my experience had then been chiefly confined to a 

 single season, I thought it better to wait for the further evidence which 

 the present spring has afforded me. 



It is, I believe, the general practice of gardeners to select the early 

 runners of one season to place in pots for forcing in the following spring. 

 Instead of these, I selected, as soon as their fruit had been gathered, the 

 roots, which in the mode of culture recommended in my last commu- 

 nication * upon the subject, had borne one crop of fruit ; but which had 

 been planted too closely in their beds to be retained there long with 

 advantage. The roots of these, to which a good deal of mould remained 

 attached, were retained as perfect as was practicable ; but their branches, 

 which in some varieties were become very numerous, and which in all 

 were too abundant, were reduced to three at most in the large varieties, 

 and to four in the smaller ; and the plants were all placed so deeply in 

 the soil, after their old and decaying leaves had been taken off, that their 

 buds alone remained above it. Soil of extremely rich quality had been 

 chosen for the purpose, and water holding manure in solution was rather 

 abundantly given to the pots ; the plants I by these means obtained, 

 apparently owing to their possessing a more copious reservoir of sap 

 beneath the soil, afforded me a more abundant crop of fruit, and of 

 superior quality, to that which I believe I could have obtained from 

 younger plants. A single plant of this kind will be found sufficient for a 

 pot, the size of which must be regulated by the habits of the variety of 

 strawberry. 



Summer planting is, I think, always in some degree objectionable ; 

 because the plants can never have time enough to extend their roots to 

 a sufficient depth beneath the soil to save themselves from being injured 

 by drought in the following spring. But as the whole extent of the soil 

 which is allotted to produce strawberries becomes, under this mode of 

 management, every year productive of fruit, it may in some situations be 

 the most eligible. Whenever this mode of culture is adopted, I would 



* See page 283. 



