TE B PET UAL ST RAWBERRIES. 



321 



Mr. Charles A. Peabody, of Columbus, Georgia, quoted by 

 Mr. R. G. Pardee, wrote as follows : — 



" In European gardens autumnal crops of Strawberries have 

 been obtained sometimes by pinching off the flower stems in 

 spring, suppressing the runners, and feeding and watering the 

 plants liberally during summer ; but this process partakes more 

 of the art of forcing fruit than of the ordinary cultivation. What 

 was needed was a variety of large-fruited Strawberry, flowering 

 and bearing fruit naturally in summer and autumn, just as the 

 Alpine does. Ananas perpdtuel was a harbinger of the new races 

 to come. After a short period of popularity, however, it seems 

 to have sunk into oblivion. 



" It is now well known throughout the Southern States that 

 for many years I have cultivated the Strawberry extensively, and 

 have had from my beds a constant succession of fruit six months 

 in the year, and frequently have it ten. While I am now writing 

 (December 24) one of my beds — of an acre — is loaded with ripe 

 fruit, specimens of which I have sent to New Orleans, Mont- 

 gomery, Savannah, Charleston, Mobile, and New York. This 

 bed has scarcely produced a runner the past season. The causes 

 of this will be found in my method" of culture. ... I prefer a 

 sandy soil and new land. My grounds are on what are called 

 *. piney woodlands,' hills and valley with never-failing streams 

 meandering through them. I have taken the grounds bordering 

 on the streams, ploughed them deep, and laid them off in rows 

 two feet apart. I plant seven rows of pistillate (Honey's seed- 

 ling) and one row of hermaphrodite (early scarlet). I plant the 

 pistillate for fruit and the hermaphrodite for impregnators ; and 

 the only two which I have found to bloom and fruit together 

 the whole season are the Honey's seedling and the large early 

 scarlet. The first season I let the runners fill the ground ; in 

 the fall go through the grounds with hoes, thinning out to eight 

 or ten inches, leaving the vines to decay just where they are cut 

 up. I then cover the whole bed with partially decomposed leaves 

 from the woods or swamps. I never use animal manure of any 

 kind — nothing but the leaf-mould and an occasional sprinkling 

 of wood-ashes. The leaf-mould keeps the ground cool and 

 moist, as well as the fruit clean, and does not stimulate the plants 

 to runners. The potash and acids contained in it are just what 

 the fruit wants. A few years of this culture will check their 



