34 STRAWBERRIES 
Gautier really belongs to this class, but it has little of 
the decided perpetual character of St Joseph; and, 
though it crops heavily in summer and has large, 
highly-flavoured fruits, it has the demerit of poor 
colour. 
The perpetual strawberries are so called, because, if 
allowed, the parent plant flowers in May and fruits in 
June, at the same time putting forth runners that 
quickly take root and soon come into flower. Not only 
does the earliest runner-plant flower and fruit, but other 
runners made from and beyond it do the same, giving a 
succession of fruits as long as the temperature is high 
enough to keep up the vitality and productiveness of 
the plants. It is, however, a short-sighted policy to 
allow the parent to flower and fruit, supposing, of 
course, that it is in the autumn that fruits are desired. 
As summer fruiters, St Joseph and St Antoine de 
Padoue are surpassed by the leading and popular large- 
fruited varieties grown especially for that purpose, 
consequently it is not profitable to bring them into 
competition with these. A far better plan is to remove 
all the flower trusses that form in May on the parent 
plant so that all possible vigour may be thrown into the 
runners, of which very few should be retained. A 
plantation managed in this way, and treated liberally as 
regards manuring and watering, should give a fair 
crop of good strawberries right up to the time when 
the decline in temperature causes the latest fruits to be 
lacking in flavour. 
Sufficient runners must be taken to provide for the 
next season’s crop, as the best plan—paradoxical though 
it may seem—is to treat the perpetual varieties as 
annuals, planting in autumn for the succeeding year, 
and rooting up the fruiting plantation as soon as frosts 
appear. 
