STRAWBERRIES 15 
soil round the parent plants to the depth of an inch or 
so, and into this peg or otherwise fix the early runners. 
Sufficient room is allowed every runner, so that at plant- 
ing time each one may be lifted with a good ball of soil 
and roots, and at once be transferred to the new planta- 
tion. Some amount of artificial watering is necessary 
if the best results are to follow, and it is obvious 
that the less time there is allowed to elapse between 
the lifting and the planting of the rooted runners the 
better. . | 
Propagation by division is now seldom practised, ex- 
cept when it is necessary to increase the stock of some 
new or expensive variety. It is easily managed, how- 
ever, and consists merely in splitting up a plant into as 
many pieces as there are crowns, each crown having a 
portion of stem and a few roots attached. Careful re- 
planting in suitable soil, with the provision of moisture 
as necessary, are matters that admit of no neglect when 
increase by division is, for some reason or other, carried 
out. 
If the grower has an experimental turn of mind he 
will probably try his hand at the improvement of straw- 
berries, for every experienced cultivator has a distinct 
idea of what an ideal strawberry should be. It must 
have a good constitution, be prolific, handsome, medium 
to large in size of berry, of fine flavour, luscious, and 
firm enough in flesh to suffer conveyance over a long 
railway journey without damage. The only way by 
which that ideal can be obtained is by the cross-fertilisa- 
tion of varieties that are nearest perfection; but if any- 
one thinks that the finest new varieties are thus easily 
secured, I would remind him that it frequently takes 
several generations of cross-breds to reach anything like 
a first-rate variety, and quite a number of the newer 
sorts are the combination, in varying degree, of half-a- 
dozen or more good strawberries. 
