VI.] 



LIST OF FRUITS. 



201 



while it is bearing, sends forth runners along upon the ground : 

 these runners have several joints, and, at every joint, there comes 

 out a root which penetrates down into the ground. Each of these 

 roots sends up a plant ; so that the runner, if it extend to a yard 

 or two, as it frequently will, would, perhaps, produce ten or a 

 dozen plants. All these plants, if cut from the runner and planted 

 out, would grow ,• but all of them would not bear the first year if 

 so planted out. The runners begin to start usually in May, not 

 making much progress at first, on account of the coldish weather ; 

 but, by the middle of June, the runners have produced an abun- 

 dance of plants. You take the earliest and stoutest of these, 

 plant them out before the end of the first week in August, and 

 these plants will bear abundantly the next year. Great care must 

 be taken in this planting. The ground should be made rich and 

 fine : the root is but small, and the weather is hot ; therefore, the 

 root should be fixed well in the ground with the fingers ; and a 

 little rain or pond water should be given to the plants. They 

 should be attended to very carefully to see that worms do not tear 

 them out of the ground or move them at all : the ground should 

 be moved frequently between them, approaching as near to the 

 plant as possible. By November, the plants will be stout : the 

 winter, however severe, will do them no injury ; and, in the month 

 of June, when only a year old, they will produce a crop worth 

 fifty times the labour bestowed upon them. When planted out, 

 they ought to be placed from three to five in a clump, each plant 

 at a few inches from the other. The clumps should be in rows 

 of three feet apart, and, if it were four, it would be so much the 

 better, and at three feet apart in the row. To cultivate straw- 

 berries in hedsy sufiering them to cover the whole of the ground 

 with their runners and young plants, is a miserable method, pro- 

 ceeding from the suggestions either of idleness or of greediness, 

 and sure to lead to the defeating of the object of this latter. Straw- 

 berries will bear a little in this way, though not much ; but the 

 fruit will be small and of insipid flavour. Neither should eveji 

 the clumps be suffered to stand to bear for more than two years. 

 I have sometimes tried them the third year, bnt have never found 

 it answer. But then to have new clumps is so easy that this can 

 form an objection with no one. Having need of a certain num- 

 ber of clumps, you have only to take up those that have borne 

 for two years, and plant just the same number of new ones. To 



