500 STRAWBERRIES. 



as the fruit is gathered, however, this covering should 

 be removed, and the ground kept clean by the hoe. In 

 the winter, and not before, as the plants will not have 

 finished their growth, the leaves must be cut off, and the 

 spaces among the plants, as well as the alleys, dug care- 

 fully over, so as not to injure their roots : this will be 

 best done with a three-pronged fork, instead of the 

 spade. The second summer, the plants will bear their 

 best crop and finest fruit ; the beds and outside of the 

 alleys should be covered with mown grass or with straw, 

 as before, three or four inches thick : by this method I 

 have found the fruit not only more abundant, but much 

 finer than by any other. 



In cultivating the Hautbois Strawberry, plants from 

 bad collections produce a number of what some gar- 

 deners call male or sterile plants ; and many are of 

 opinion, that because they are males, it is necessary they 

 should be preserved in their beds, in order to fertilise 

 the others ; and some have gone so far as to plant them 

 with a rather numerous regularity for this purpose. 

 The consequence has been, that their beds have proved 

 more fertile in leaves than in fruit, and the stock has at 

 length been condemned as bad ; whereas its sterility 

 has proceeded from those favourite males, the stools of 

 which having no crop of fruit to support always pro- 

 duce a superabundance of runners, which being also 

 much stronger than the fertile ones have consequently 

 overrun and overpowered them, and literally annihilated 

 the only ones capable of producing fruit. 



Having had a parcel of Hautbois plants given to me 

 some years ago, I planted them out, and suspecting 

 there were many sterile plants among them, I did not 

 suffer a runner to remain the first year. The second 

 year, five plants out of six proved to be so, which I im- 

 mediately destroyed ; and as soon as the runners of the 

 fertile ones became rooted, I planted out the bed afresh : 



