C 432 ] 



LXVIII. On the Preparation (/Strawberry Plants for early 

 Forcing. By Thomas Andrew Knight, Esq. F. R. S. 

 Sfc. President. 



Read March 16th, 1824. 



e method of preparing Strawberry plants for early for- 

 cing, that of putting the plants into pots a year, or longer, 

 before they are intended to afford fruit, is generally perfectly 

 successful, and is in every respect eligible, except that it 

 requires a good deal of time and trouble. For if the pots be 

 not regularly watered during the summer after the plants are 

 put into them, the size of the future fruit will be considera- 

 bly reduced ; and if during the following winter the pots be 

 not carefully protected from excess of moisture and frost, a 

 great part of the fibrous roots, which lie in contact with the 

 internal surface of the pots, will be found lifeless in the spring; 

 and many of the pots, if their quality be not very good, will 

 be broken by the expansion of the frozen water. 



The minute fibrous roots of trees (the chevelu of the French 

 writers) have been pronounced by them, and by all the natu- 

 ralists of this country, who have written upon the subject, to be, 

 like the leaves of deciduous plants, annual productions only : 

 and such is the opinion of Duhamel, or rather his decision 

 respecting facts within his own observation ; for he rarely, if 

 ever, favours his readers with his opinions. If the fibrous 

 roots of plants, which have, like the Strawberry plant, the 

 whole habits of trees, be annual productions only, any effort 



