The Strawberry Book. 31 
CHAPTER V. 
ON. PROPAGATION. 
Very few cultivated plants of any value can rival the 
strawberry in the ease with which they may be propagated. 
A strawberry vine, as soon as it gets well established, be- 
gins to throw out runners, each one of which may take 
root and send out others to multiply in their turn. This 
occurs in open culture, where I have known a single plant 
of the Agriculturist variety to make two hundred and thirty- 
two in the course of the season. 
In rich soil, rows of vines set in April, three feet apart, 
with the plants nine inches asunder, will cover all the inter- 
mediate space with a close carpet of vines before fall. With 
new and rare varieties the artificial aid of a hot-bed or frame 
may be called into use, and then the multiplication of vines 
goes on very rapidly. I know a gardener who obtained 
in a certain spring, when- Hovey’s Seedling was new, six 
plants of that variety, and got from them, by autumn, a, 
bed of fifteen hundred. The various kinds differ much in 
regard to the number of runners they send out. In the 
same soil La Constante would put out comparatively few 
runners, the Jucunda a moderate number, while some of 
our native kinds would produce myriads. A sprinkling 
of ashes now and then stimulates plants to produce run- 
ners in large numbers. 
Generally the runners will root themselves, and fasten 
upon the soil; but with new and-choice kinds it pays very 
well to assist nature a little by pressing the end of the run- 
