434 



GARDENING FOR THE SOUTH. 



they bear enormous crops. Third, those which, like the 

 native varieties, are true hermaphrodites, that is, perfect 

 in stamens and more or less perfect in pistils, so that they 

 generally produce a tolerable crop, and, in favorable sea- 

 sons, the pistils being fully developed, they will produce a 

 good one. 



This is called the staminate class in some books. The 

 first of these classes, the staminate, rarely producing fruit, 

 and running exuberantly to vine, should be dug up wher- 

 ever found, since the hermaphrodite are productive, and 

 equally useful for fertilizing. It is to the pistillate varie- 

 ties, fertilized by the hermaphrodite, that we must look for 

 large crops of fruit. 



In beds of each of these varieties, seedlings will spring 

 up, differing from the parents ; but runners from any 

 va/iety will always produce flowers of the same class and 

 similar in all respects to the parent plant. By the due 

 admixture of hermaphrodite and pistillate plants, five 

 thousand quarts have been picked from an acre at Cin- 

 cinnati, where the strawberry season is usually less than a 

 month. 



Potash, soda, and phosphoric acid are the elements 

 most likely to be wanting in the soil. Wood ashes and 

 the carbonates of potash and soda prove very beneficial 

 applications. 



The good effects of applying the phosphates, or lime, 

 have not been so apparent, perhaps, owing to there being 

 enough already in the soil. 



Propagation and Culture. — To raise the strawberry in 

 perfection requires good varieties, a proper location, care- 

 ful cultivation, vegetable manure, mulching the roots, and 

 regular watering. 



The strawberry bed should be in the lowest part of the 

 garden, succeeding best on a bottom near some little 

 stream of water, where the soil is moist and cool ; no 



