DECEMBER. 
271 
in the management of the Strawberry when introduced into the forcing-house, 
we should make ourselves acquainted not only w r ith the circumstances that act 
favourably and conduce to the highest development of the fruit when grown in 
the open air, but also with those peculiarities of soil and conditions of climate that 
exert a prejudicial influence upon it. We find the Strawberry luxuriant and 
fruitful m rich retentive loams, which afford unfailing supplies of moisture; and 
weak and unfruitful when grown on poor sandy soils, or where the subsoils are 
gravelly or open and stony, rendering the supplies of moisture, so much required, 
by the plants from the time of flowering to the maturity of the fruit, failing or 
uncertain. Strawberries grown in pots and placed in the forcing-lioase are 
liable to suffer, even under the best management, from dryness, and occasionally 
from too much water. To prevent the too rapid drying up of the soil of the 
Strawberry-pot, and to afford an additional evaporating surface, tw r o plans are 
called into use. One consists in the employment of slips of turf cut to the width 
of the shelf and placed upon it, the pots resting directly upon the turf. The 
other is to place an ordinary shallow pan beneath the Strawberry-pot: the 
objection to this is that the water passing through the soil of the pot is retained 
by the pan, and the roots often stand in water. The pan I have invented is not 
liable to this objection; but in keeping the lower roots cool, and in affording a 
certain amount of evaporation, it presents the same advantages as the turf, and 
is superior in convenience. 
The pan is made to suit the ordinary 32-sized six-inch pot; it is 4 inches 
high, 7^ inches in diameter, and it is thus large enough to allow the Strawberry- 
pot to be placed within it, leaving a space of about an inch all round, which 
can be filled with sand or soil. The pan has a hole at the bottom, but a circular 
rim 1 inch in height surrounds the hole, and on this the pot rests. Between 
the circumference of the pot and the ring there is a space which holds water 
enough to keep the sand moist if replenished about twice a-week. The obvious 
advantages of the use of this pan are the greater security of the roots from dry¬ 
ness and the additional evaporating surface afforded by the soil in the pan, 
which being immediately beneath the foliage, provides a congenial atmosphere 
for the plant, and this has the effect of keeping down that pest in the Straw¬ 
berry-pot—red spider. 
Belvoir. —( Gardeners' Chronicle.) William Ingram. 
NEW BOOK. 
The Vegetable World; being a History of Plants , ivith their Botanical 
Descriptions and Peculiar Properties. By Louis Figuier. London: 
Chapman & Hall, 193, Piccadilly. 
Works such as the one before us are a pleasing sign that there exists a 
growing desire for a knowledge of plants and their structure. There was a 
time not long gone by when botany and vegetable physiology seemed to lan¬ 
guish among us; but now the tide seems to have set in afresh in their favour, 
and there is good reason to hope that they will be more generally studied than 
ever. The natural sciences are rapidly but surely winning a higher position in 
our educational schemes, and lessons in the great book of Nature which lies 
open before us are obtaining the preference over those which are gained from 
the languages and the literature of peoples which have long since passed from 
the face of the earth. Without desiring to disparage the classics, it must be 
confessed that the teachings of science have a utility, a value, and a truth which 
the former do not possess, however much they claim our respect as a branch of 
learning. The memory of an ode of Horace, or the whole of Virgil’s JEueid, 
