December 25, 1890. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
565 
sunshine. This Deutzia looks well if planted just behind a 
large stone where its branches can hang naturally over the top, 
which it will do when well established. It keeps fairly dwarf 
outside, and throws up suckers freely from the base. Near the 
margin of beds of Rhododendrons and deciduous Azaleas it is at 
home, and also flourishes in the same soil, and no peat preparations 
need be made. It grows freely in good soil (where lime 
floes not abound) that has been enriched with manure or leaf 
mould. 
The old Azalea indica is also hardy, and this we have only 
recently discovered. A fairly large plant has been on the north 
side of a Rhododendron clump for some years. It grows freely 
and flowers profusely, and is therefore effective in such positions. 
It needs no special preparation, and is evidently at home under the 
same conditions as Rhododendrons. Have other varieties of 
Indian Azaleas been tried outside, and with what success ? 
Rhododendron praecox and Early G-em are very useful for out¬ 
side planting, and both look well in the rock garden and also in 
the front of beds of American plants. In too many gardens these 
are used solely for forcing purposes, and for ornamental purposes 
outside are either overlooked or ignored. This is to be regretted, 
for they flower early when there are few other things; and 
although they are sometimes caught by frost they are nevertheless 
worth growing in sheltered positions.—W. B. 
STRAWBERRY CULTIVATION. 
Strawberry cultivation in many instances in the north does 
not receive the attention it deserves ; the plants are often allowed 
to go wild, and I have witnessed as many as twenty individuals in 
one field of Strawberries during the spring upon their knees 
■spudding the weeds, which one individual during the summer with 
a Dutch hoe would have killed in a few hours. This and growing 
■crops between the rows of Strawberries so as to overgrow the latter 
is the opposite of economically occupying the ground or of profit¬ 
able Strawberry culture. 
“ Why do you not grow Strawberries to have a full crop from 
the plants within one year of planting ?” was a question I put to 
an author of a horticultural work and a grower of Strawberries. 
■“ It cannot be done,” was the reply. “ I have tried it, and have 
always failed.” Without ocular demonstration I could not argue 
my point; but the other day the same person visited me. I took 
him to a small plantation of Strawberries, one part planted in 
September, 1889, and good plants, and the other planted at the end 
•of July and beginning of August of the present year ; by no means 
so early as they might have been, nor so well grown. I asked him 
to examine the two and say whether the 1889 or the 1890 plants 
were likely to be the more fruitful, but the only answer was, “ He 
could not without seeing have believed it.” Many are of the same 
opinion, while others do not give Strawberry plants the care they 
are entitled to. Gathering the runners at the end of the season, then 
dressing, exposing them it may be for days to a dry withering 
wind, or allowing plants to be overgrown with weeds or vegetables, 
then having to wait one or two years for a full crop, is far from 
profitable. 
My method has been given before, but is none the worse for 
being retold. The ground intended for Strawberries should either 
be naturally rich or enriched before planting, and at all times kept 
free from weeds. Lea, if rich, produces heavy crops of Straw¬ 
berries, and it is better to have but half a crop of vegetables from 
ground intended for Strawberries, with a full crop of the latter 
within a year, than to keep a plantation of Strawberries for years 
without getting one full crop in any year. When I have decided 
upon a piece of ground previous to planting Strawberries, I grow a 
row of Onions or Eschallots in the centre of where the Strawberry 
plants are intended to be; early Turnips or Beet, or any narrow 
growing plant will do. 
I encourage runners from fruiting plants of the previous year, 
that all flowers are carefully nipped out as well, the weakest 
runners taken away as they appear ; pieces of turf are chopped up 
and placed so that the runners will strike into them. Whenever 
they are well rooted, and plenty of them, the plants are separated, 
lifted, and planted immediately, in July, the earlier the better. 
They will grow vigorously without a check, and remain in a green 
and growing condition all winter, and by the following July a full 
crop of large Strawberries will be the reward of the cultivator. 
If the day is hot when planting, place the Strawberries in a 
shallow plate in which is a little water and grass. 
Never allow a runner to grow from plants for next year’s 
fruiting, and whenever the fruit is gathered dig the year-old 
plants down, and plant the ground with suitable vegetables. The 
mother plants that showed fruit blosssoms and were allowed to bear 
plants may be trimmed, and manured will bear a good crop late in 
the season or the following year. 
If the above method is carried out thoroughly there will not 
only be more fruit but more vegetables taken from the ground in 
the same space of time than from any other method, and the 
ground will be less impoverished than by growing old Strawberry 
plants for a succession of years. I have sometimes grown Straw¬ 
berries successfully by planting one row of plants at 16 inches 
apart in the row, then bosoming these plants on both sides with 
plants the same distance, leaving a space of 32 inches from centre 
to centre of the outer rows. This allows more plants, and the 
wide space is ample to permit gathering the fruit and keeping 
down weeds.—W. T. 
GLADIOLI. 
( Continued from page 509.') 
The enjoyment of the blooming season is not, as in the case 
of many flowers, of short duration. In such a splendid autumn as 
we had this year good spikes of bloom continued until the middle 
of November ; and at the meeting of the Horticultural Club on 
November 9th, Mr. Lindsell exhibited some remarkably good 
spikes ; and when to this length of the flowering season we add that 
no flower is more durable in a cut state, we can see what claims it 
has on all those who love a garden. 
The taking up, harvesting and keeping the corms during the 
resting season is one of the most important points connected with 
their culture, and here, as* in other points, there is some difference 
of opinion. I am not now dealing with those who grow them by 
the acre, but with the amateurs who grow only a moderately sized 
collection. The grower for sale has a good many things to do at 
the time, and he may be well satisfied to take up his corms when 
and how he can ; but the amateur can bide his own time. I think, 
therefore, that the advice to get them up as soon as they have done 
flowering is not sound ; they are not then matured and are apt to 
shrivel up very much in the drying off ; on the contrary, I think 
that it is much better to leave them some considerable time in the 
ground after that—in fact not to begin taking them up until late 
on in November or early in December unless the foliage becomes 
yellow, when it may be best to lift them. I find it better to begin 
with some of the earlier flowering sorts first, such as Amalthee, 
Shakespeare, &c. The best place to dry them off is, I think, a 
cool vinery where they have the advantage of the shade of the 
Yines, and where a little fire heat may be put on. If necesssary, 
I lay some out on the ground, and when they are dry cut them off 
the stalks quite close to the corm. In some cases where I have 
only a few of a sort I tie them in a bundle and hang them up to 
rods of galvanised iron which remain in the house, leaving the 
string about a foot in length for that purpose. 
The keeping of the corms during the winter is a rather 
important matter. Some advocate paper bags, but I think this is 
a very bad plan. If the bases of the corms come into contact 
they are sure to damage root growth, and this is injurious to the 
future well-being of the corms. They can be laid on low shelves, 
in which case the base should be uppermost, or, which I think is the 
best plan of all, they should be placed on an open trellis frame, with 
trays of the same kind, so that there is no contact, and there is a 
free current of air round them. When they are dry, and before 
I place them on the trays, I always write the name of the variety 
on the corm itself, so that if by any chance they become misplaced 
there is no fear of an error, and one always likes to keep things 
true to name. 
I now come to a point on which there has been more difference 
of opinion than on any other matter connected with the culture 
of the Gladiolus. I mean the looses which everyone who has tried 
their growth experiences. This has been assigned by some .to 
degeneration, by others to exhaustion, and by others (myself in¬ 
cluded) to disease ; but from whatever cause it is experienced more 
or less by every grower. A few years ago I submitted some corms 
to the consideration of Mr. Worthington G. Smith, who examined 
them most carefully, and proved them to be affected by a disease 
similar to that which in some seasons attends the corms in 
Holland. Mr. Burrell says we must calculate on a loss of 10 per 
cent., and I wish I could get off with this. I met a nurseryman 
some little time ago, who said, “ I am sick of them ; during the last 
ten years I have spent £50 on them, and I have not a corm left! 
I have seen nearly every grower who has taken up their culture 
giving them up, and it would be folly to conceal the fact that in 
some soils considerable loss must be counted on. That it is a 
disease I have not the smallest doubt, and its ravages are sometimes 
very distressing ; for instance, this year I never had finer looking 
beds. I cut, as the exhibitions showed, some very grand spikes, but 
some of these very corms when I lifted them were utterly worth¬ 
less. Mr. Lindsell tells me he has not lost 5 per cent., and when I 
