344 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
September 
of growing strawberries as celery, and as, although 
no doctor, I have been rather successful in the cul¬ 
ture of that productive and delicious fruit, I may, 
while I have pen in hand, add my mite to the contri¬ 
butory information which your useful pages already 
afford on the subject, by giving some of the details of 
my practice and its results. 
My climate, then, is wbat may be expected in a 
dry situation, far from, and some (300 feet above, the 
level of the sea; my soil a strong clayey loam, recently 
trenched and drained, from an old wood, which was 
full of boulders, and very wet. The kinds which 1 
principally cultivate are nearly what you recommend. 
1, The Keens Seedling', an excellent berry and fair 
bearer. 2, The British Queen] a delicately-flavoured 
good-sized berry, but I have not yet found it a great 
bearer. 3, Myatt’s Deptford Pine ; a large and high- 
flavoured berry, and a very good bearer. And 4, The 
Ellon Pine] large, but coarse-flavoured, and a very 
great bearer. Other kinds I have a few of, for the 
sake of variety, such as the old Roseherry and the 
Bath ; and I was, like many others, duped into trying 
the Aberdeen Beehive, which seems to me of a similar 
kind, only not so large nor so fine, as the old Scarlet, 
and which runs a fair chance of being turned out of 
my garden with disgrace next season, if it does not 
prove better than it has done this. And I do not 
mean to try the “ Aberdeen Monster Batwing-shaped 
Strawberry ,” although “ 39 ripe berries were taken 
from one plant weighing 25 ounces.” 
I dig deeply and manure well before planting. I 
have been in the practice of planting runner plants 
at once in the bed in which they are to stand, filling 
up with turnips, spinach, &c., the first year after plant¬ 
ing, but have recently adopted the plan you recom¬ 
mend of planting them in nursery beds for a season, 
which I think is better. 
I allow between each plant of the Keen’s Seedling 
21 inches, between each row 2 feet; of the British 
Queen, between each plant 2 feet 3 inches, and 
between each row 2 feet 6 inches; of Myatt’s Pine, 
between each plant 2|- feet, and between each row 
2 feet 9 inches; and the Elton Pine, between each 
plant 3 feet, and between each row 3 feet 3 inches. I 
fork over the ground in the fall of the year, and dig 
it over and manure it well in the spring, not merely 
between each row, but between each plant, which I 
keep as distinct from its neighbour as I would two 
gooseberry-bushes. I dig all down, and make a fresh 
plantation every fourth year, counting from the time 
the plants are taken from their parents. 
Now, with reference to the space which I allow for 
my plants to grow in, I think I hear some of your old- 
fashioned readers, who (as T have heard done) grudge 
a foot between the plants and 15 inches between the 
rows, exclaim, “ What a waste of ground is here !” 
But I say, no ! for mark the results. My plants nearly 
meet after the first year, allowing between each merely 
access to as much sim and air as is necessary for 
bringing the fruit to maturity; and without this you 
cannot have good fruit, as is exemplified in some rows 
of the Elton Pine which were planted in my garden 
by mistake only two feet apart, the fruit of which, 
although a heavy crop, becomes soft and pulpy before 
it ripens. Then, I have finer fruit and more of it 
thau under a mode of culture less liberal in point of 
space. For example: from a plot of 250 plants of 
the Elton Pine treated in this way, I have in this, the 
third season, picked in one day nearly 35 tbs. of 
splendid berries, very many of them of the Batwing 
or double kind, and weighing from an ounce to an 
ounce and a quarter each berry. I have selected a 
few of the largest, and found them to weigh at the 
rate of 12 to the pound; and I have counted the 
number of berries, ripe and unripe, on some of the 
plants, and found it to be from a hundred to a hundred 
and twenty, after two or three pickings from the 
plot, including the above great picking.—C. 
[We beg our readers’ particular attention to this very 
able and trustworthy communication, for although we 
are only at liberty to publish the writer’s initial, yet 
we have his address, and hope to receive from him 
some more reports of his enlightened practice. In 
the true spirit of gardening he has brought the three 
slightly-differing modes of celery planting, recom¬ 
mended by our contributors, before the best of all 
judgment-seats—that of practice; and we, as well as 
our contributors, we are sure will be well pleased to 
know the result. We fear, however, that Mr. Barnes 
will have a just ground for appeal, because his mode 
has not been tested at the same early time with the 
others. The result of our correspondent’s strawberry 
culture is most satisfactory, and so closely approaches 
that of some of the best strawberry growers, though 
he slightly differs in his distances, that we recom¬ 
mend it for trial by our readers.— Ed. C. G.J 
EXTRACTS EROM CORRESPONDENCE. 
Fuchsia Riccartoni. —There is now growing in 
my garden a Fuchsia Riccartoni nine feet six inches 
high, and thirty-three feet in circumference, mea¬ 
suring round the extreme branches. It would be 
much larger were it not hemmed in by other fuchsias 
of the same kind. Seven years ago I brought this 
tree home in my waistcoat pocket, and planted it as 
a cutting; it was turned out the following year in 
the situation where it is now growing, and has never 
died back, but merely sheds its leaves each winter, 
and buds out in the spring to the extreme points of 
the branches. It is now (Sept. 4th) one mass of 
splendid blossoms. Is this sized fuchsia grown else¬ 
where in such perfection ? My garden is very much 
sheltered, and within the influence of the sea atmo¬ 
sphere. This is the only fuchsia I have yet grown 
that is not more or less injured by the winter cold. 
The scarlet geranium and some of the verbenas have 
lived through the winter here in the open border, 
and I have known the heliotrope and geraniums 
(especially one we call Touchstone) in blossom on 
the 1st day of the year.— Rev. C. Onslow, Knoll 
Rectory, Corfe Castle, Dorset. 
[We know this fuchsia well. It was named after 
a gentleman’s residence, Iiiccarton, near Edinburgh. 
There is a drawing of a specimen of the same variety, 
and of similar size, in the Gardener's Chronicle for 
1846, page 579. That specimen was growing by 
the side of a carpenter’s shop near London. The 
branches were killed by the severe winter of 1844, 
but it revived and attained the great stature there 
recorded. The carpenter’s shop, we believe, was in 
the Horticultural Society’s Garden at Chiswick. This 
large growth is not peculiar to F. Riccartoni, nor to 
the mild climate of the south of England, for, in 
the Gardeners Chronicle for 1843, pp. 557, 790, a 
Fuchsia, macrostemon is described as growing at Lo¬ 
gan, Wigtonshire, ten feet high, and forty in circum¬ 
ference. Another fuchsia, we are told, is mentioned 
in The Scotchman as being thirteen feet high, and 
nearly forty feet in circumference. We recommend 
the growth of Fuchsia coralina to our readers as the 
best of the new varieties for attaining a large, bushy 
