THE STRAWBERRY. 



155 



treated will form plants in two or three weeks, and may 

 be planted out with safety any time from August to Oc- 

 tober. If strawberry plants are treated in this way, and 

 planted in August, and care taken that all runners that 

 come from them be cut off as soon as formed, so that the 

 whole force of the root is thrown into the main crown, 

 a full crop of berries will be gathered the season follow- 

 ing, or in nine or ten months from time of planting. We 

 have practiced this system of layering strawberry plants 

 in pot3 for what we need for our own use, for the past 

 twenty years, and the results have been so successful that 

 we have many converts to the system among our neigh- 

 bors. Plants grown in this manner cannot often be ob- 

 tained from the nurseries, as the necessary labor and ex- 

 pense of the pots makes the price five times more than 

 that of ordinary plants rooted in the open bed. When 

 strawberry plants are set out in the fall, unless under 

 favorable circumstances, many will fail to grow, for the 

 reason that each young plant or runner is sustained in 

 part by the old plant, and when detached, feels the shock 

 more than a rooted cutting or seedling plant does, that 

 has been growing for weeks on its own account, for that 

 reason we have always advised all that were intending to 

 plant fresh strawberry beds, to prepare their plants a few 

 weeks ahead by layering them in pots. Two to four hun- 

 dred plants are all that an ordinary family will need, and 

 two or three hours' work would be all the time required 

 to layer the plants in the pots. One hundred plants so 

 prepared, will give more fruit the first season than 1,000 

 plants planted in the usual way, and the plant forms 

 a stool quicker, and much less time is expended in keep- 

 ing them clean. The use- of layered plants is recom- 

 mended specially for fall planting, and the sooner it is 

 done in fall the better ; plant in August if possible. 



In spring the use of potted plants would have no spe- 

 cial advantage, as if planted in April or May, they would 



