SEPTEMBER. 
187 
than picking off any unsightly leaves, and occasionally stopping some of the 
strongest shoots. One of the plants now forms a most magnificent column of 
variegation, contrasting well with the surrounding objects. 
I strongly recommend this plant where rapid growth is required, and there 
is plenty of room ; when confined, either as regards its roots or top, it soon 
becomes rusty. I give the preference to the variegated Cobsea, considering 
it in every respect superior to the plain-leaved kind. It delights in good soil. 
Our plants were planted in a good barrow-load of equal parts of strongish loam 
and leaf mould ; in this compost they thrive remarkably well. 
Wrotham Park. John Edlington. 
Remarks on strawberries and strawberry 
GROWING. 
The Strawberry crop of the present season has on the whole been a deficient 
one, for though in some places Strawberries have been very abundant and fine, 
in others they have been very few. This is easily accounted for. The two 
previous summers have been very dry, and Strawberry plants in exposed situa¬ 
tions where the soil is naturally thin and light, suffered much from drought. 
It has only been by manuring and constant heavy waterings the whole of last 
summer that good crops have been obtained this season on such soils; where 
this has not been done the crops this season have been very deficient. Young 
plantations of Strawberries, where the soil is naturally a deep rich loam, have 
borne heavy crops of fruit. • 
I have grown most of the kinds of Strawberry that have been sent out 
during the last twenty years, and I have generally given them a fair trial, in 
most cases extending over a period of three or four years ; the result has almost 
invariably been, that after a fair trial I have thrown them out of my collection 
altogether, and of the few sorts which I have retained I have generally limited 
my stock rather than extended it. I have had to fall back on my old sorts 
and extend their cultivation. If I had to limit the kinds I grow to three, 
I do not know of any three which I would select in preference to Keens’ 
Seedling, British Queen, and Elton. I grow a dozen or more kinds at present; 
but no three that I grow, nor do I think any three kinds taken from the largest 
list, will produce so much fine fruit and furnish a supply for so long a time as 
Keens’ Seedling, British Queen, and Elton. These are very old sorts, and too 
well known to require any description here. Sir Harry is a good useful kind, 
it is a great bearer, and furnishes a succession of fruit for a long time, but its 
coarseness is a great drawback. Jucunda is also a good kind, and so are 
President and Frogmore Late Pine. Eleanor does well in some places, and 
is a fine showy fruit; but with me it bears badly. Duke of Malakoff, Empress 
Eugenie, Carolina Superba, Sir Charles Napier, Oscar, Trollope’s Victoria, 
Princess Frederick William of Prussia, Nimrod, Prince of Wales, and Admiral 
Dundas, have none of them done so well with me as to make me wish to extend 
their culture. 
My mode of cultivation is very simple, and as many will now be making new 
plantations of Strawberries, I will briefly detail it. I have the runners layered 
in small pots as early in the season as a sufficient number can be got. They 
are well watered if the weather is dry, and they soon get well rooted, and are 
planted out before the roots become too much matted together. The ground 
for their reception is mostly (indeed it ought always to be), in good condition; 
it is not manured at the time of planting, but is either trenched or dug very 
deeply. I may here remark that the soil, when it is naturally thin, should 
