THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTED 
j “ Absurd as these notions are, they were not wholly ex- 
j plotted in the time of Addison. He laughs at a doctor who 
■ was arrived at the knowledge of the green and red dragon, 
and had discovered the female Fern-seed.” (Taller, No. 
! 240. lira ml's Popular Antiquities.) 
Not only were these superstitions not exploded in the 
| time of Addison, but they linger still in some of the 
I rustic corners of our land. Thus Mr. Edwin Lees, in 
his recent work, “ Pictures of Nature in the Silurian 
; Region round Malvern Hills,” says :— 
“ The country-people in Worcestershire, as my antiquarian 
friend Mr. Jabez Allies informs me, still traditionally keep 
up the old belief in the mystic powers of the ‘Fern-seed,’ 
which was supposed to make the gatherer ‘ walk invisible.’ 
The saying is, that the Fern blooms and seeds only at 
twelve o'clock on Midsummer night; and to catch the seed 
twelve pewter-plates must be taken. The wondrous seed, 
i it is affirmed, will pass through eleven of the plates, and 
rest only upon the twelfth ! Such an idea - may now be 
smiled at; but the philosophers of a past age believed 
•something very similar, and even taught that demons 
watched to convey away the Fern-seed as it fell, ere any one 
could possess themselves of it. To 1 walk invisible ’ was 
said, and atone time believed, to result from possessing the 
Fern-seed." 
THE STRAWBERRY. 
Tms being a good period for making new plantations, 
j a few observations may prove serviceable. 
It may be remarked here, that the earlier the young 
I runners can be obtained, the greater will be the produce 
1 in the ensuing year. Those who can find time, and 
i endeavour to pursue very high culture, select the earliest 
and best runners, and lay them in pots plunged in the 
soil, merely placing a stone upon them to cause them to 
adhere to the soil. That which is called “ the frequent- 
runner system ” is the best, a.s to fine produce, there can 
be little doubt; we have, however, seen much larger 
j crops produced from plants two or three years old. 
Strawberries love a deep, loamy, and somewhat 
generous soil. As to manuring, they, of course, require 
it like most other crops; but we have known many crops 
spoiled by an excess of manorial matters. If the soil 
is of a loose and shingly nature, some adhesive material 
should be added, or it will be vain to expect good crops. 
Marls, pond mud, the scourings of clayey ditches, and 
' adhesive soil from commons, or wastes, are all highly 
eligible as improvers. The soil should be dug quite 
half-a-yard in depth, and some coarse manure placed in 
the bottom of the trench; if the soil is hot and loose, 
some coarse cow-manure would be excellent. Above 
this, some rather more decomposed may be added; this 
should he well mixed through the upper portions of the 
I soil. In strong or adhesive soils plenty of' charred 
rubbish may be introduced with good effect; this wo 
have proved to be of much benelit to the British Queen 
j especially. 
Large kinds of Strawberries, as the Queen , require 
i from three to four feet between the rows; such as the 
i Black Prince will succeed with from about twenty-four 1 
to thirty inches. The final distance between the plants 
in the row may be, for the larger kinds, twenty inches, 
and for the smaller about sixteen; many plant them I 
much closer, but there is no advantage in it. 
Our practice is to plant them double thickness in the 
row the first season, and in the ensuing August to 
remove, or destroy, each alternate plant; so that our 
Queens which we are planting now will be ten inches 
apart. The ground should bo dug a week or two 
previous to planting, and each line for the row trod 
slightly when dry, in order to prevent the plants from 
■ sinking, for they abhor having their collars below the . 
GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION.—August 5, 1850. ;325 
level. 1 need hardly point to the propriety of obtaining 
the stoutest plants, and of seeing that they are watered 
and attended to after planting ; but I may here observe, 
that the runners should not be selected on the score of 
their numerous fibres alone, but rather for the stoutness 
of' their bud; many of the latter, without a root even, 
1 will make much finer plants than thin-waisted plants, 
j however rooted. 
! Something may here be said about variety of aspect. 
Of course, everybody desil’es a succession. \Ve will 
just take four by way of illustration; and although they 
; be old kinds, are still, as I think, indispensable, and 
will serve our put pose. The Black Prince at the foot of 
a south wall will come in a week or more before the 
i Keans' under similar circumstances. Therefore, I would 
! advise the planting one row of the Prince at the foot of 
a wall, or paling, and a lot of Keans’ Seedling on some 
warm slope. The British Queen would be as well in 
1 some airy and perfectly open situation; and the best 
plan with the Eltons is to form a slope to the north, and 
to plant them on this. We generally obtain them from 
the border on the north side of a wall, planting the 
first row at six feet from the wall. These Eltons come , 
into use long after the others; they will generally 
continue until the end of August. Our other new ! 
| Strawberries may be handled in a similar way, having ! 
regard to the link they constitute in our desserts. 
I will now offer a few opinions pertaining to general i 
Strawberry culture. Those who have paid close atten¬ 
tion to the habits of this luscious fruit, the companion 
of our childhood, will have noticed the tendency of the 
i plant to root upwards; or, in other words, annually 
to produce surface-roots. Need I say, that, in all 
fruits, this is a circumstance not to be lost sight of? 
And to what does it point? Why, to two great 
facts in the culture of all fruits, to say nothing of 
plants in general ; the one, that the tree or plant 
in question may be made to acquire fresh power in 
a very short period ; the other, that it is liable to be 
affected by sudden drought. Hence, one reason why 
the Strawberry requires so much moisture, especially 
whilst swelling its fruit; and hence, also, the benefits 
of an annual top-dressing. 
One thing I may just name, as connected with the 
i selection of runners. There is more differ^cc in the 
original habit assumed by the runner, even before 
! it roots, than many would imagine; this is the 
| case, also, with many other runner-producing plants. 
! Some are inclined to be long and loose - jointed; 
others short and compact; some are full in the centre; 
others have a kind of hollowness; and, lastly, some 
have a pinky sort of hue, or unnatural appearance, and, 
generally, such have a wiry sort of consistence; by all 
means avoid these. Choose stout runners, with a full 
crown, a good colour, and a bold foliage, and, as before 
observed, bo not over-particular as to the quantity of 
roots. 
Here let mo advert to the management of the foliage, 
on which a good deal depends. The old practice of 
mowing off the leaves soon after the crop was gathered 
is now universally repudiated, and most justly. It 
classes well with the barbarous practice, once recognised, i 
of cutting down all the Asparagus possible, in order to 
strengthen the roots. These conceits, thanks to the 
gardening press, are gone by, surely, for ever. 
But Strawberry foliage must some time bo trimmed, I 
and useless runners pruned away; the question is, then, 
when and how? It must surely be known by this time 
that the foliage of fruits, in general, is not ordained 
by Providence as a mere ornament alone, but that it 
has a special part to perform in the system of the 
vegetable or treo. That it has to cater or elaborate 
juices for the maintenance of the fruit in the present, I 
as well as to sustain the position of the tree in a 
