2o0 
CULTURE OF THE STRAWBERRY, ETC. 
alone they received damage, but the sudden transition from heat to 
cold, which in February is often the case, as after sunshine very se¬ 
vere frosts happen with rain and sleet, which I believe to be the 
chief cause of injury to the cropping of the vine. If we compare 
the climate in which it is indigenous with our own, we find the 
weather very severe, but of shorter duration, and less subject to 
change than in this. It is the practice in the vineyards in Germany 
for the labourers to make fires of turf, weeds, &c. to protect the 
vines from the inclemency of the weather, and in France it is cus¬ 
tomary to lay them in the soil and cover them over. 
The Syrian, which is a large white oval grape, with a thick skin 
and firm hard flesh, is supposed to be the same species which the 
twelve spies who were sent by Moses to view the land of Canaan cut 
down by the Brook Eschol. A bunch of these grapes, grown by 
Mr. Speechley, of Welbeck, was produced, of the enormous weight 
of nineteen pounds. 
It may perhaps be started as an objection to my method, that lay¬ 
ers may be raised in the same time as eyes, which I admit, but the 
reason why I give a preference to plants raised from the eye or bud 
is, that layers are apt to make a superabundance of roots, which 
weaken and cause them partially to break, and prove defective in the 
second year’s crop, and on such deficiency, I contend that the only 
plan to be relied on, is the one I here submit. 
W. Matthews. 
ARTICLE III. 
CULTURE OF THE STRAWBERRY, RASPBERRY, GOOSEBERRY, 
CURRANT, VINE, &c. 
BY HENRY BROOKE, ESQ. 
Strawberry. —The runners should be planted in a moderately stiff 
soil in August, and in showery weather, either in beds of three rows, 
having an alley on each side, and the plants fourteen inches apart 
each way ; or in rows two feet six inches wide, and a foot apart in 
the row, to afford room for treading between the plants without pres¬ 
sing too closely upon their roots, and to preclude shelter for reptiles, 
and insects. Runners of the former year may also be planted in 
March and April, but they will bear little or no fruit that season. 
After fruiting is over the spaces between the rows, two feet six in¬ 
ches wide, should be digged and manured with the moss, rushes, fern 
