20 
THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 
Lucas .' — Large in size and handsome in appearance, flavour very 
rich and aromatic ; heavy cropper, and altogether highly desirable as 
a main crop variety. 
President . — One of the very finest varieties in cultivation for 
main crops, as it immediately succeeds the early varieties. The fruit 
is of fair size, good colour, and handsome, and the flavour is most 
excellent ; it is also very productive. 
Royalty . — A valuable new variety, producing medium-sized fruit ; 
often most excellent, it possesses the good qualities of being robust 
and productive, and deserves to be very generally grown. 
8ir C. Napier. — Large, handsome, and productive ; a desirable 
variety for those who prefer strawberries possessing a sub-acid 
flavour. 
Sir Joseph Paxton . — Fruit rather above the medium size ; hand- 
some and of fine colour, rich in flavour ; early and very excellent. 
Yicomtesse Nericarte de Thury . — Early and highly productive ; 
rather acid, but a most valuable variety for its earliness and pro- 
ductiveness. With respect to forming new beds, there can be no ^ 
doubt that when the cultivator has beds from which to obtain a 
supply of runners, the autumn is the most suitable season of the year 
for the worli. But in certain cases where the runners have to be 
procured from a distance, the early part of the spring will be found 
the best season for planting. Strong runners put out early in March 
will make quite as strong plants by the end of the season as those 
planted out late in the autumn. In low-lying localities, where the 
soil remains charged with moisture throughout the winter, a pro- 
portion of plants will perish. I would therefore advise those who 
contemplate making new beds to do so in the course of the spring, 
instead of waiting until the autumn season. The principal point in 
strawberry culture is to prepare the soil thoroughly by dressing it 
liberally with partly decayed manure, and then trench it to a depth 
of eighteen or twenty-four inches, and in doing so break it up well, 
and thoroughly incorporate the manure with it. Overcrowding 
must be avoided, and the plants should be eighteen inches apart in 
the rows, and the latter two feet from each other. 
A BEDDING PLANT FOE THE WINTER GARDEN. 
|NE of the most objectionable points as regards the bed- 
ding-out system is that when the summer occupants are 
removed from the beds, the latter are usually allowed to 
lie fallow, bare, and cheerless throughout the winter, 
spring, and even the first month of summer, tiU they 
can be again filled. This need not be ; for, in what is in modern 
parlance called winter and spring gardening, there are abundant re- 
sources and material with which it is not alone quite possible, but 
easy, to have the flower ground looking almost as gay, and perhaps 
rather more interesting, during winter and spring than it does when 
