THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
December 13. 
140 
ripening. It is a very good practice to transfer 
strawberry-pots from their fermenting pits or frames 
to high shelves in houses, and such should take 
place the instant a crop of blossom is “ set.” They 
are removed hy gardeners at various stages; some 
in pursuance of principle, others as a matter of ex¬ 
pediency. We must, however, hazard our opinion, 
which is, that they are better in the pits or frames 
until well “ set.” When they are “ swelling off,” and 
provided they are thickly set, it is best to have re¬ 
course to the scissars, as in grape thinning: such 
increases the size of the fruit much. The quantity 
of berries left must depend on the strength of the 
plant, together with its resources at the root. In 
general, a good plant of Keen’s seedling in an eight 
inch pot will mature from 12 to 20, or more, berries 
of a respectable size, the inferior berries and the 
“ cripples” being removed in the thinning process. 
To finish our consideration of the strawberry for 
the present, we may advert to ventilation and the 
use of liquid manure. It is a well-known fact, that 
strawberries “ set” the better the closer they are to 
the glass. Now, both light and a free circulation of 
air are essential to this process, as also to flavour in 
the ripening. As soon, therefore, as the blossoms 
begin to expand, ventilation must be increased; in¬ 
deed, in mild days it is well, if convenient, to pull 
the lights or sashes completely off. This, however, 
must not take place unless they have been gradually 
inured previously, and when the weather is of a ge¬ 
nial character. As to liquid manure, the strawberry 
is much improved by it. Some clarified soot-w r ater, 
with which Peruvian guano, at the rate of nearly 
two ounces to a gallon, has been blended, will be 
found a very great assistance, from the period of the 
truss of bloom-showing until the first berry begins 
to turn colour. If, however, liquid manure is con¬ 
stantly used, one-half the strength will suffice. We 
are not aware that soot-water is prejudicial at any 
strength; but we put about a gallon of soot to about 
twenty gallons of water. 
One more caution; take care that the water is 
always about five degrees warmer than the average 
atmospheric temperature. R. Errington. 
THE FLOWER-GARDEN. 
Trees and Shrcjrs newly Planted. —Now is a 
good time to look over the flower-garden and shrub¬ 
beries to see what can be done for young trees 
and shrubs that have not thriven since they were 
planted, and for older ones that once promised to re¬ 
ward us for our careful attention, but which from some 
cause or other are not looking so well as they ought 
to do. There need be little fear about such plants as 
were l'emoved late last spring being yet in no very pro¬ 
mising mood, as few seasons within my memory have 
been so ill-suited for young things newly planted. 
They experienced extremes of cold and dry heat be¬ 
fore their roots could take much hold of the soil, so 
that many of them lost their leaves, and are still 
looking far from being healthy; their roots, however, 
must have made great progress since last August, for 
we never had a better autumn, and, I was going to 
say or a longer, one for planting and for lately planted 
things; so that, with judicious pruning this winter, 
we may reasonably calculate on a fine vigorous 
growth next season. All pi ants that are much stunted 
from a recent transplanting ought to be pruned very 
close before they begin to grow next spring, for of all 
the hopeless things in this world to expect that a free 
circulation of sap can run through a stunted hide 
bound shoot is the most hopeless, and we have no 
means of remedying this but by close prunning, and 
in future to be wiser, and get our pruning and plant¬ 
ing finished before the winter sets in, so that the 
roots may be in action in the spring as early as the 
i leaves. It is not too much to say, that in our climate 
i every tree and bush every climber and twiner, with 
all trailers and creepers, and the whole race of ever¬ 
greens, ought to be planted at the end of the autumn, 
and not only that, but all the pruning that is neces¬ 
sary, to bring the head of the plant within a compass 
corresponding to the strength of the mutilated roots, 
should be affected a full month previously to the 
removeal of the plant, and not at planting time, as is 
generally done; unless indeed your are planting from 
a nursery, when of course the plants will not be 
pruned till you get them home. If I made up my 
mind to plant a certain evergreen tree or bush on the 
20th of September, I would cut off all the branches, 
or part of the branches, that I thought necessary to 
be removed, as early as the middle of August; and if, 
during the interval, some of those branches that were 
headed made a fresh attempt at making another 
growth I should like it all the better, as showing that 
the whole plant was so full of blood that the sap 
must either break the bark, or find a vent in an un¬ 
seasonable growth at the tops of the main branches; 
and before this could take place, every bud on the 
tree, and every cell that composes it, must needs be 
as full of the rising juices as a newly-laid egg. 
Now, there cannot be two opinions amongst prac¬ 
tical men about this being the very best state for a 
tree to he in at the moment the fork and pick are 
laid to its roots for removal. We may differ as to the 
best month for removing large plants, hut we are all 
agreed—at least I hope so—on the point, that every 
bud on the transplanted tree ought to be in the best 
possible means for a start next growing season; and 
it is not too much to say, that, those buds left when a 
tree is pruned and planted the same day, are just in 
the very worst to renew their growth, because they are 
then, like all the rest of the lower buds on the tree, 
much less charged with sap than those situated 
towards the top of the branches, so that the most 
prominent buds must of necessity be removed in the 
process of pruning. 
Not many years back, there was a wide-spread 
controversy as to the merits of pruning at the time 
of removing trees and shrubs; one order of practi¬ 
tioners maintaining that not a twig nor a leaf should 
be removed from a transplanted tree, because, as they 
affirmed, the more leaves a tree possessed the more 
capable it must be of renewing its roots; and this 
idea took such a firm hold of the rising generation 
of gardeners that to this day many of them believe 
that the more leaves a cutting has the sooner it 
must root. Many of the older members of our an¬ 
cient craft scouted this idea altogether, but still 
they were much in the minority, and at last were 
well nigh outvoted altogether. At this critical 
point Dr. Lindley’s Theory of Horticulture was an¬ 
nounced, and now, it was thought, “murder will 
out,” and each party concluded that if the Doctor had 
any brains at all he must side with their view of the 
pruning question; at last the book appeared, and a 
most valuable and useful book it was, is now, and 
will be for the next two or three generations. A 
quotation from Hales's Vegetable Statistics, on the 
title page, was most ominous to the leaders on either 
side of the controversy. It runs thus—“ Though 
I am very sensible that it is from long experience, 
