July 3.J 
removed with caution. The birds and the mice must 
he particularly guarded against, and a good gun and 
some traps will be found useful adjuncts of the straw¬ 
berry harvest. The blackbirds and throstles are sad 
pests in some districts; we have had some rattling expe¬ 
rience of their labours for a score years or more, and 
our practice has been to use small iron traps like the 
ordinary rat-trap, about four inches across when ex¬ 
panded ; and they are, indeed, most efficient, although 
we must confess to a secret pain whenever we have 
seen a bird in them. 
Runners should be veil kept under in whatever 
stage, provided they are really not wanted ; yet, now is 
1 the time to select and encourage some of the most for- 
| ward for forcing purposes, as also to reserve sufficient 
; for making new plantations where necessary. An eye 
I should be kept on the Eltons, or the Alpines, for succes- 
, sioual crops, and, of course, grown as a special and dis¬ 
tinct class. Bed-culture we have hitherto found best for 
the Eltons; but some good practitioners confess to a 
predilection for the single-row system. We find it 
necessary to look over the beds once or twice in the end 
of June and during July, in order to thin away super¬ 
fluous runners, or to cut away barren stems; both of 
which produce much injury by intercepting the light, 
and preventing a free circulation of air. If a dry time 
occur whilst the Eltons are swelling the bulk of their 
crop, which will be from the beginning of July to the 
middle of August, water should be liberally given. As 
for the Alpines, they require i much attention as to 
watering, or their size and general appearance will be 
very inferior. Their runners, too, must be well kept 
under; and any early fruit now swelling may be cut 
away, for such is of no use whilst the regular Strawberry 
season lasts ; and the powers of the plants should be 
kept in reserve for the autumn supply. 
With l’egard to runners for forcing no time may be 
lost; much depends on obtaining the very earliest, and 
in taking oare that they are set to, work forthwith. 
They should be selected in open situations as much as 
possible; and the best way is to lay them in pots, using 
a very sound loam, slightly enriched with good manure, 
for the purpose. Some persons use 3-inch pots, and 
others 5-inch; the latter are decidedly preferable. Such 
being properly drained, and filled with the compost, 
may be plunged here and there, wherever a good early 
runner presents itself; and the latter being placed on 
the surface, a stone will suffice to load it with, so as to 
retain it in its place. In a few days they will be well 
established, and may then be removed from the parent 
plant, and receive a repotting into their fruiting pots 
at once; for which purpose 7-inoh pots are very gene¬ 
rally used. Of course, they should be attended to in 
regard of water during the whole of their progress, and 
a very open and airy spot should he chosen, shade being 
highly injurious to the formation of a compact flower- 
bud. With regard to kinds for forcing, some prefer one 
kind, and some another. The old Keen’s seedling is 
the most general favourite; but it has met with some 
formidable rivals ol late. The British Queen is, doubt¬ 
less, a fine fruit for either in-doors work or out; but it 
would seem to be fitter to succeed such kinds as the 
Keen’s seedling, or the Black Prince ; the latter is said to 
be a very useful early kind. By the way, the old Boseberry 
still finds admirers occasionally; it is certainly tolerably 
eligible for very early forcing, but how seldom do we 
find flavour under such circumstances. 
Those who want to make new plantations may pursue 
a similar course to that suggested for the forcing lot. 
It is very good practice to prepare a plot of ground in 
beds of four feet in width, and to prick out the very 
earliest runners nine inches apart. The ground should 
| be well manured with very rotten manure, and only dug 
I or forked six inches deep ; at least, such we have found 
211 I 
good practice. The object is to obtain speedy growth, 
and a somewhat early cessation of it; this causes the 
plants to form very compact buds, for the moment the 
roots come in contact with the hard bottom unmanured, 
their rampant character becomes tamed, and the whole 
plant is speedily solidified. These plants will be fit to 
remove in the middle of October to a permanent site, 
and may be taken up with capital balls of earth, planting 
them with a trowel. This course is particularly advise- 
able where, from the severe limitation of ground extent, 
a summer crop must be taken off the plot before the 
strawberries are planted. Not every one can afford to 
make plantations, at full distance, with plants in the 
runner state. B. Errington. 
THE ELOWER-GARDEN. 
Management of Beds. —On the average of seasons, 
except in very sheltered and warm situations, the great 
majority of the fashionable, or half-hardy, plants turned 
out into the flower-beds in May, do not begin to grow 
away in earnest till about this time. Hence the reason 
why we are obliged to plant them thick all over the beds, 
so as to make a good show at once, and hence, too, the 
small necessity there is for much training, or pruning, 
or regulating of the shoots during the month of June. 
Now, however, all these processes must be attended to 
diligently for the next two months at least. Let us, there¬ 
fore, see how the best kept flower-gardens are managed in 
all these respects. In the first place, let us say that the 
fashion of the present day is that no particle of the 
earth in the flower-beds is to be seen, if it can be so 
managed. Formerly, we used to consider it good prac¬ 
tice to have a small open space left all round a bed, 
whether it was bounded by grass or box-edgings, but now 
this small verge is denied us, and yet we must not show 
a cut edge aloug the ends of the plants. Every branch 
of a Geranium, Calceolaria, Fuchsia, and every trailing 
shoot of a Verbena, Petunia, Heliotrope, and all the 
rest of them, must appear as if it had grown exactly to 
the required length, or say rather, to the very edge of 
the bed and no farther. There is a great deal of nicety 
required to keep the edge of a bed always in this condi¬ 
tion, and like most other eye and finger-work, the proper 
method of effecting it cannot altogether be learned from 
books—practice alone can give one the full mystery. 
The closest rules that 1 can lay down for this work are 
these: never to attempt to cut two adjoining shoots with 
the same cut; always to cut close to the leaf, and, it the 
leaf is large, never to cut it in two : it is better to remove 
it altogether than to see it cut across the middle ; trail¬ 
ing shoots, at least many of them, should not be stopped 
at all so early as this in the season, but, as soon as they 
reach the side or boundary, train them along the out¬ 
side, if there is room for them, and if there is not, turn 
the points towards the centre of the bed. I have seen 
Verbenas and Petunias injured by being constantly cut 
its soon as they reached tire outside. Where \ erbenas 
are mixed in a bed, for the purpose ol shading the 
colours, there must, of necessity, be two or three de¬ 
grees of strength in the plants, some being much 
stronger than others, and here the utmost precaution 
must be observed in pruning and training the plants; 
to stop a strong grower in order to keep it from 
running over a weak one is by no means the best 
way; rather double it back on itself lor awhile, until the 
next shoot from the same plant is nearly as long, and 
then cut the first one away altogether, which we call 
thinning. Another way to deal with strong Verbenas 
that are planted in a mixture is to keep the shoots from 
making roots as they grow along, by raising them or 
moving them backwards and forwards every time you 
■ are dressing the bed. It is difficult to get men to do 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
