406 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



should be put over the plants by the middle of September. Before doing it. 

 however, it is a good plan to go over the plants and take off any superfluous 

 foliage, afterwards propping up the fruits upon sprays made of old birch 

 brooms, or by means of wire supports, so as to keep them quite clear of 

 the ground. Of these Strawberries we grow about 1000 yearly in pots, 

 planting out only the best afterwards. Varieties :— The pioneer of this 

 section was probably ' Louis Gauthier.' We do not grow this now, as it 

 fruits in autumn only upon the runners, whereas all the following fruit upon 

 the old stools in addition: — 'St. Joseph,' recommended for its cropping 

 qualities more than for its flavour ; ' Jeanne d'Arc,' similar to, but on 

 the whole better than, the preceding ; 1 Oregon ' and ' St. Antoine de 

 Padoue ' — these I have bracketed, for they are very similar : they are the 

 two best autumn-fruiting varieties for dessert, cropping well, and of good 

 flavour : both are similar to 1 Royal Sovereign.' 



3. By means of plants that have been forced the previous spring. — For 

 several seasons in succession we have derived part of our crop by this 

 method. Some of these fruits, picked in the open, were shown before the 

 Fruit Committee at the first August meeting of this season. These came 

 into bearing soon after the last of ' Latest of All ' were gathered. We 

 select for this purpose the earlier forced plants — those that ripened their 

 first crop about the middle of April. I prefer these to the later stock, 

 which is not always so reliable for second fruiting, but tends rather to 

 make a luxurious growth. This year we planted out those chiefly 

 that were forced in 48- size pots, and, with the favourable time for 

 establishing them in May, we found them to succeed very well indeed. 

 We do not plant out all from one stage of forced plants for the obvious 

 reason of securing a succession. (It is well known that these plants, 

 even if they miss fruiting in the autumn, will yield a heavy crop under 

 natural conditions the following season.) Last year, and this also, we 

 have adopted the plan of potting on the early forced plants from 48's 

 into 32's, or from 32's into 24's. In this way we have added considerably 

 to our source of supply. Scarcely a plant missed showing one or two 

 trusses ; but, as we did not want the earliest, we pinched them out in order 

 to get a later truss if possible. This season we have a good batch potted 

 from 48's into 32's from which a good picking has been taken, and now 

 we have this batch of plants as a whole, which will be the first plants 

 to put in for early forcing this coming season. They are by far the 

 strongest and best crowns we have, being much better than this season's 

 runners. I see no reason whatever why this method should not be 

 extensively adopted, especially of potting, from 48's into 32's. 'Royal 

 Sovereign ' is the variety I have treated in this way, and it is the second 

 season of the experiment. 



