240 FRUIT CULTURE UNDER GLASS. 



moved to shelves near the glass in early-started vineries 

 and peach - houses, where no special house for them 

 exists, and a succession of plants can take their place 

 in the pit. 



The time when ripe strawberries are required must 

 of course regulate the time when forcing should begin. 

 It generally takes three months from the time the plants 

 are started tiU the fruit is ripe. When forcing is com- 

 menced very early, say the middle of November, a week 

 or 14 days more must be taken into the count. The 

 best variety to begin with thus early is Black Prince; 

 and plants of it introduced into heat about the 14th 

 November will ripen their fruit the last week of Feb- 

 ruary. Keen's Seedling, the next best early variety, 

 takes 10 days more. Unless, however, where there 

 is a large stock of plants and early crops be imperative, 

 it is not desirable to begin forcing so early. There is 

 a degree of uncertainty and loss, generally amounting 

 to nearly one-half the plants, in the case of those set 

 agoing in November. A full half of the plants cannot 

 be expected to set anything like a crop of strawberries. 

 In fact, those that are started before the last week of 

 December, are about the most uncertain crop that can 

 be attempted, especially where there is no well-ap- 

 pointed strawberry - house. Under ordinary circum- 

 stances, I do not recommend firing to begin before 

 January, not only on account of the uncertainty of the 

 produce, but because strawberries ripened in com- 

 paratively sunless weather and a close atmosphere are 

 not very well flavoured. 



I wiU suppose the 1st of January to have arrived, the 

 time when the earliest are, in the majority of cases, 

 placed in heat. Let the required number of the best 



