STRAWBERRY. 
10 1 
Gardeners have different habits and opinions as to trimming the plants 
when they are put out. Some cut off all the old leaves, and preserve only 
the naissant leaves in the center of the plant. Others take off the dead or 
decayed leaves only, and plant with all the old healthy leaves on the plant. 
This last plan is highly recommended by the Abbe Rozier, but, so far as my 
experience goes, I have found the first mentioned course best. Many people 
cut the roots in before they put them into the ground: all dead substances 
should be cut off, but not the roots. When the plants are put out, they should 
be kept free from weeds, and the ground should be kept loose about them. 
If the plants are strong, put but one to form the stools; if weak, put two. 
As regards the distance at which plants should be set, cultivators differ. 
The common red strawberry, which is found in all our gardens, may be put 
eight inches apart in rows nine inches or a foot from each other, and allowed 
to form a matted bed of eighteen inches or two feet wide, with a foot-path 
of a foot wide between them. But the larger and finer sorts should be 
planted in stools in beds four and a half feet wide, with a path of fifteen inches 
or more between the beds. In these beds the plants should be set, by a line, 
fifteen to eighteen inches apart, both ways, taking care to set them in quin- 
cuncial order, and to keep them from running together. 
The objection generally made to this mode of cultivation is, that the fruit 
is exposed to be injured by lying on the ground, where it is bruised and cov¬ 
ered with dirt every time it rains. This, however, may be prevented by a 
little care. In some parts of Europe, where moss is plenty, it is collected 
and put round the stools, so as to prevent the fruit from lying on the ground 
and at the same time to prevent the moisture round the plant from evapo¬ 
rating. 
In some places, where moss is not to be got, straw is used for the same 
purpose ; hence the English name of strawberry.^ But I think that leaves 
of trees that have been collected in the spring, and kept under cover, are bet¬ 
ter than either, and particularly the oak-leaf; because, when they are no 
longer wanted to protect the fruit, and keep the moisture in the ground, they 
can be dug in round the stools, where they serve as most excellent manure 
for this delicious fruit. 
The strawberry may also be propagated by seed. Knight, in making ex¬ 
periments, with a view of ascertaining whether most of the sorts would not 
breed together indiscriminately, raised above four hundred varieties, “some 
very bad, but the greater part tolerably good, and a few very excellent.’* 
The fruit of above a dozen sorts was sent to the Horticultural Society [in 
London] in August, 1818, and found of various degrees of excellence. The 
seeds, if sown immediately after gathering, will produce plants which will 
come into bearing the following year.— Loudon. 
* This name is common in all the northern countries, while in France, and countries 
couth, it is said they take their name from their flavor, or the botanical name frasarik < 
