FRUIT UNDER GLASS. 163 
There is a great variety of figs, and out of about fifty varieties 
I have found the following the best :-— 
Brown Turkey, Negro Largo, Pinge de Mel, St. John’s, White 
Ischia, White Marseilles, Black Ischia. 
THE STRAWBERRY. 
To be successful with early forcing of strawberries, you must 
get runners early, grow them quickly on, and have good plants 
in the autumn with stout crowns well matured. In gardens where 
forced strawberries are grown in large quantities, plantations of 
strawberry-plants are now specially made for the purpose of 
getting early runners. 
The plan adopted is :—In July, layer as many runners as are 
required in four-inch pots and prepare a south or warm border. 
At the beginning of September plant it with these now well- 
rooted runners taken out of the pots, Planting thus early the 
plants get well established before winter. The following May 
they will throw up flower-spikes. As soon as these show they 
should be all cut off; this will throw the whole growth of the 
_ plants into producing leaves and runners instead of fruit. 
Runners are got this way a fortnight earlier than from the older 
plantations, a matter of the greatest importance. The middle of 
June is a good time to begin preparing young plants for forcing. 
Several methods have been tried for the early rooting of runners, 
but the plan found to work best and which is most generally 
adopted is to fill clean two-and-a-half or three-inch pots with 
good rich soil—and a large number of these being filled in the 
potting shed can be conveyed on a handy spring wheel-barrow 
to the border of strawberries—then with trowel proceed to plunge 
the pots between the lines and place a runner on each pot, 
pressing it in with a stone the size of road-metal, and leave the 
stone on pot. The weather at this season is usually very dry, and 
so watering of runners must be daily looked to even althouge 
the pots are plunged. In about a fortnight or three weeks’ time 
these little pots will be well filled with roots, and the transference 
into their fruiting-pots should be proceeded with forthwith. The 
middle of July is a good time to put them in the fruiting-pots. 
Experiments have been tried in the past with different sized 
