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On the Cultivation of Strawberries. 



this bears fruit of the finest colour, and of far superior flavour. 

 In selecting these plants, care must be taken, that there are 

 not too many of the male plants amongst them : for as these 

 bear no fruit, they are apt to make more runners than the 

 females. I consider one male to ten females the proper 

 proportion, for an abundant crop. I learned the necessity 

 of mixing the male plants with the others, by experience, in 

 1809 ; I had, before that period, selected female plants only, 

 for my beds, and was entirely disappointed in my hopes of a 

 crop. In that year, suspecting my error, I obtained some 

 male blossoms, which I placed in a bottle on the bed of fe- 

 male Hautbois. In a few days, I perceived the fruit near the 

 bottle to swell ; on this observation, I procured more male 

 blossoms, and in like manner placed them in bottles, in 

 different parts of the beds, removing the bottles to fresh 

 places, every morning, and by this means, obtained a mode- 

 rate crop, where I had gathered no fruit the preceding 

 year. The duration of the Hautbois, with me, seldom exceeds 

 three years. 



The Wood Strawberry, is best raised from seed, which I 

 obtain from fruit just gathered, sowing it immediately in a 

 bed of rich earth. When the plants are of a proper size, 

 I transplant them into other beds, where I let them continue 

 till the March following. They are then planted in rather a 

 moist soil, in beds, as the others, each row being two feet 

 apart, and the plants in each row eighteen inches distant, 

 the alley between each bed being three feet wide : in this 

 way I produce abundant crops of very fine fruit. I have 

 propagated this Strawberry from runners, but never with such 

 good success as from seeds, particularly if the runners were 



