HORTICULTURAL OBSERVATIONS FROM FRENCH AUTHORS. 257 



seedlings of the first year, that they seem to prefer the alpine to 

 all other sorts, and to be supplied at market with the fruit of it 

 in every month of the year, by the use of some heat in the 

 winter. 



The seeds, they say, may be sown either in a little heat, or in Sowing th« 

 the open air, but always in the shade; they should be sown in seed- 

 sifted mould, and scarcely covered ; have a thin layer of moss 

 strewed over them^ and they should be frequently moistened. 

 Fresh seed grows up in eighteen days : old seed is much slower. 

 The runners must be carefully removed. 



The market gardeners near Paris sow theirs twice a year, in 

 March, and toward the end of August j in six weeks they are 

 large enough to be transplanted, v/hich is done at eight inches 

 apart. Those sown in MarcA, fruit in Ma z/ and June; those • 



sown in Jugust, the spring following. See Traite des Arhres, 

 p. 9. I rather suppose that the plants sown in March give their 

 fruit in autumn. 



It is good to sow strawlerries within the distance of five or 

 six feet from a north or a west wall ; in the latter case, the moss 

 is absolutely necessary. The plants grown from the Marc 

 sown seed must be well watered through the summer; in hot 

 weather twice a day, if they are expected to bear in the 

 autumn. The French seem to find the August sowing most 

 productive. Even in the autumn, in the almanac called Le Ion 

 JardinieTj the author tells us to sow the seeds of strawberries in 

 February, if we have not done it m the preceding Augmt. 



The hautbois is called in French, caperonier ; it is lately only Hautbols and 

 that we have observed an hermaphrodite variety, which bears Chili straw- 

 abundantly ; in fact, the plant is polygamous ; this the French ^* 

 have long known, and they say that the Chili strawberry is also 

 polygamous, and that the females may be made fertile by th« 

 impregnation of the male flowers of the hautbois. ^ 



YoL. XXXIII, No. 154.— December, 1812. S Far the 



