her own freaks and vagaries, or by the
artificial process of systematic hybridising.

Strawberries of vigorous growth become
absolutely annoying to the gardener, during
the season of making their runners, from the
luxuriance with which they obtrude
themselves in all directions, choking up the
passage of gravel walks, pushing their way
through hedges, and smothering flower-beds.
A serious inconvenience of this rampant
vegetation is the difficulty which it causes in
keeping two similarly- leaved kinds unmixed
and distinct, if the size of the garden does
not permit the separation of the beds by a
wide interval either of alley or of some
crop. To avoid these nuisances, some cut
the runners as fast as they—start a wearisome
task: others fear to do so lest they
should injure the plant. But it has been
proved by experiment that the strawberry
bears and thrives equally well whether its
runners are cut or not—in short, that it
makes no difference. The cutting, moreover,
is a self-increasing labour; the runners are
like the hydra's heads; the faster you cut
them, the faster they start. It is a violence
done to nature, against which she rebels;
and the best plan is to let them alone,
removing them, to provide young stock for
neighbours and friends, as soon as the first
runners are fairly rooted. For, runner number
one, if left undisturbed, will send forth a
runner number two; number one will blossom
the following spring, number two most
probably not. But there is an almost
forgotten variety of the wood-strawberry which
makes no runners, known by the French as
fraisier sans filets and fraisier buisson, or
bush strawberry, because it grows in little
tufts (like the well-known thrift) by the
division of which, in autumn, it is multiplied.
It forms an exceedingly pretty edging, and
gives no trouble to keep it neat. Its fruit,
though pmall, lasts in long succession. There
is a white-fruited sub-variety which is not
generally known. Besides these, there is a
runnerless alpine called the gaillon
strawberry, because it was found, about eighteen
hundred and twenty, by Monsieur Le Baube,
in a bed of seedling alpines, at Gaillon. It
flowers and bears all summer long. This,
too, has a white-fruited variety. The GailIons,
which require to be frequently divided
and replanted, bear even more abundantly
in autumn than in spring. Here, then, are
qualities whose value will be estimated at a
glance by progress-loving horticulturists,
like Rivers and Paul. Here is the faculty of
bearing a constant succession of fruit, and a
habit of growth which saves all the plague
and confusion of runners. If we could but
unite to these merits the juiciness of the Elton,
or the size of the Chili, what a grand stride
in advance would the strawberry have made!

Another mode of cutting is sometimes
practised, for neatness' sake, which I venture
to qualify as barbarous. As soon as the poor
plants have ripened their last fruit, there
comes a two-legged monster who makes more
frequent use of his muscles than of his brains,
bearing a scythe, or a pair of shears, or a
carving-knife of round-of-beef power, with
which he shaves the unfortunate strawberry-
bed as closely as he crops his own chin on
Sundays. You remonstrate. Oh! it does no
harm; it gets rid of the litter; the leaves
will grow again, and then the bed will look
fresh and green; no fear of that. It is
useless to talk to him about the functions of
leaves; he has never killed a strawberry-bed
in that way, nor has he weakened it that he
knows of. Strawberries take a deal of killing.
His father before him always did so, and so
did his grandmother, poor old soul. Don't
waste your breath in talking; set him at
once to cleave wood and fetch water, and let
him cut away all the dead leaves he likes
any time in the course of next December.

"And those strawberry plants, madam,
that you did me the favour to accept last
year? Are they bearing well? They ought,
I think."

"Why no, sir, not exactly. I have gathered
just three or four little ones, and they were
sour."

"That is very extraordinary. They are
amongst the very best strawberries in
cultivation."

"Well, you know; I put them in an out-of-
the-way corner, where the aspect is not very
good, and they have not had much sun and
air. They are a little overgrown by trees.
I suppose, perhaps, there may be something
in that. But John, our farming-man, told
me that strawberries would grow almost
anywhere."

"Certainly, madam, and so will wheat.
And therefore John may as well sow your
next year's crop of bread-corn in some cold
wet corner, with a bad aspect, and
underneath the drip of trees. It will grow, no
doubt."

English strawberries, like many other
excellent things, are the fruits of peace. As
observed by Doctor Lindley, they are the
result of a series of quiet and silent
experimentation, of the highest importance to
gardeners, which has been going on for a
number of years in this country, and which
commenced under the auspices of Mr. Thomas
Andrew Knight. At that time, but little
interest had been directed to horticulture.
It was only at the end of the last great war,
which so desolated Europe, that any attention
could be paid to it; and it was not until
eighteen hundred and eighteen that steps
were taken for effecting those improvements,
the results of which we now enjoy. Mr.
Knight was a great physiologist, and he
devoted his attention, talent, and fortune to
the perfecting of fruits, and to none more
perseveringly than the strawberry. In his
time, the strawberry of the garden, however
rich, was small and unwilling to bear