Ma?/.] 



THE FRUIT GARDEN. 



407 



NEWLY-GRAFTED AND BUDDED TREES. 



About the latter end of this month, look over all grafted 

 ti-ees, and let the clay be taken off, and at the same time, let 

 the bandages be loosened. 



All the shoots that rise from the stocks below the grafts, 

 must be immediately rubbed off, that the grafts may not be 

 robbed of their nourishment. 



Let the same rule be observed with trees budded last sum- 

 mer, keeping the stock clear of all shoots, which would draw 

 away great part of the nourishment from the bud. 



WATERING STRAWBERRIES. 



Strawberries should now be regularly and abundantly sup- 

 plied with water twice or thrice a-week, if dry weather, and 

 continued until the fruit begins to change color, when it should 

 be left off, unless in extremely dry seasons, when it may be 

 necessary to continue it, not only to swell off the fruit, but 

 also to keep the plants alive ; for although strawberries, in 

 their natural habitats, receive, or seem to require little water, 

 yet those which have been fed, as it were, upon that element 

 hitherto, will miss the want of it, if suddenly deprived of it. 

 The London and Edinburgh market-gardeners, who are and 

 ought to be the best managers of these matters, give very 

 abundant supplies of water to their strawberries, and incur a 

 very considerable expense in the performance ; but they find, 

 that they are eventually paid by abundant crops, which, with- 

 out that nourishment, would have been scanty and precarious. 

 As the fruit begins to ripen, it should, if the weather be not 

 very scorching, be discontinued, otheiT/ise the flavor of the 

 fruit will be injured. If they be planted in lines, or in such 

 a manner, as the fruit is liable to be spoiled by the mould 

 being splashed over them, either by watering or heavy rains ; 

 they should be protected by laying long clean wheaten straw 

 carefully along the sides of the rows ; or, which is better, 

 common bricks, which, while the fruit lies clean upon them, 

 their ripening is considerably accelerated by the reflection of 



