160 On Cultivating the Alpine Strawberry. 



the plants these afforded were placed, in the end of March, 

 in beds to produce fruit. This experiment succeeded tole- 

 rably well, but I was not quite satisfied, with it.; for though 

 my plants produced an abundant autumnal crop of fruit, 

 they began to blossom somewhat earlier than I wished, and 

 before they were perfectly well rooted in the soil. I there- 

 fore tried the experiment of sowing some seeds of the same 

 variety early in the spring, in pots which I placed in a hot- 

 bed of moderate strength in the beginning of April, and the 

 plants thus raised were removed to the beds in which they 

 were to remain in the open ground, as soon as they had ac- 

 quired a sufficient size. They began to blossom soon after, 

 Midsummer, and to ripen their fruit towards the end of July, 

 affording a most abundant autumnal crop of very fine fruit ; 

 and even so late as the second week in December, I have 

 rarely seen a more abundant profusion of blossoms and im- 

 mature fruit than the beds presented. The powers of life in 

 plants thus raised, being young and energetic, operate much 

 more powerfully than in the runners of older plants, or even 

 in plants raised from seeds in the preceding year ; and there- 

 fore I think the Alpine Strawberry ought always to be treated 

 as an annual. 



