VI.] 



LIST OF FRUITS. 



203 



ground over with the rose of the watering-pot is of no use at all ; 

 the water should be poured out of the nose of the pot, held close 

 down to the plant ; and one gallon of water, at least, should be 

 given at one time to every clump of plants. If the weather be 

 very hot in June, even while the fruit is ripening, and while you are 

 gathering strawberries, they might have another such watering, 

 and that would be enough. Nothing have I ever found more dif- 

 ficult than, behind my back, to secure an honest watering. Wa- 

 tering-pots, w^hen full, are heavy; the distance may be great, and 

 few men like to carry heavy things for any long continuation. 

 Just turn your back, and they merely wet the ground ; and if you 

 return, you see that the strawberries have all been watered ; but 

 (and mind this), go the next day, if the weather have continued 

 fair, and you will then see how you have been cheated. Straw- 

 berries like good, deep, and rich land : holding land, as the people 

 in the country call it : they will grow^ almost anywhere, and will 

 produce more or less of fruit ; but, if you mean to have fine straw- 

 berries, you must have good land ; therefore, make the land as 

 good as you can make it. As to the sorts of strawberries, the 

 scarlet is the earliest ; and some people like it ; the hautbois (or 

 high-stalked), the Kew Pine, the Chili, the White Alpine and the 

 Red Alpine; w^hich two latter are vulgarly called icood straw- 

 herries. The hautboy has a musky and singular flavour as wlel 

 as smell, and some people prefer it to all others. But the great 

 strawberry of all, now-a-days, is that which was some years ago 

 raised from seed by Mr. Keen of Islington, which is therefore 

 called the Keen's seedling ; and this strawberry, which is the only 

 one used for forcing in the King's gardens, has nearly supplanted 

 every other sort. It is early ; it is a prodigious bearer ; the 

 fruit is large, and very large ; and it surpasses, in my opinion, all 

 others in flavour. I gathered some of the Kew Pine (for manv 

 years thought the best of all) ; at the same time I gathered some 

 of the Keens seedling : I put the two parcels down upon the 

 table before several persons, who tasted both in order to form a 

 judgment ; and every one of them said that the Keens seedling 

 was the best, I having taken care not to let any of them know 

 w^hich was which. But the London market speaks for the 

 character of this strawberry. Notwithstanding habit and pre- 

 judice, the London gardeners have found that no other strawberry 

 will sell ; and, in fact, there is hardly any other now brought to 



