The month of April is the best time to plant strawberries in the whole year.

If you wish the largest and finest fruit, you must make the soil deep and rich. The best manure for the strawberry, is either poudrette, (we can recommend that of the Lodi Manufacturing Co., New-York,) or decomposed stable manure. If you have these, trench the soil two feet deep, mixing in a very liberal dressing of either of these manures, throughout the whole depth. Supposing, as is too often the case with beginners, that you have nothing but fresh stable manure, then, when you are trenching, bury this stable manure in the lower spit, (i. e., the lower of the two feet trenched.) To give it a good manuring, you should trench in to one-third of this lower foot of earth. The reason for trenching it among the lower spit is, that it may be decomposed before the roots of the strawberries reach it. If mixed with the top spit, it would do more harm than good.

Having thus trenched and manured the soil, form it into beds three and a half feet wide. Draw three lines lengthwise through the beds, and set the young plants along these lines, about 4 inches apart. During the summer, the beds must be kept stirred with the hoe, and all runners should be cut off, that extend more than a couple of inches beyond the lines. You will thus have three rows of strawberries about ten inches apart - between which, the next season, you can lay straw or tan-bark, which will both keep down the weeds, and keep the fruit clean. This straw or tan may thereafter keep its place - the runners must be kept clipped, and a little additional straw or tan laid over the plants at the approach of winter, and removed again in the spring.

In this way - digging in a top-dressing of spent manure or poudrette between the rows every spring, your strawberry beds may be kept in good condition for four years - at the end of which time they must be abandoned, and new ones planted to take their place.

If, however, you do not wish the trouble of cultivating the plants so carefully, then plant them in the same way, and allow the runners to cover and occupy the whole bed. This they will do the same season, and the next year will give you an abundant crop - the fruit not so large as in the first case, but perhaps rather more in quantity. But the bed will only last one year, and you must make a new one every spring, to supply the place of the old one.

As to sorts, if you are to plant but three, let them be Large Early Scarlet, Burr's New Pine, and Hovey's Seedling. If four, add Rival Hudson; if five, Swainstone Seedling. There are many other good sorts, but this selection will probably prove most valuable to you.' The White-wood is a nice, delicate, small fruit, and bears a long time, and is a pretty contrast in a dish of red strawberries.

Answer #1

We have tried the Lodi Company's Poudrette in various ways, in our own grounds, for the last three or four years, and for all the neater work of sowing and planting in gardens, we prefer it to any other manure. For strawberries, for early vegetables, flower beds, roses, etc., it is preferable to everything usually to be had; because, unlike guano, it enriches without burning, may be used safely with any plant, and brings no weeds, like common manure. "We consider a barrel of it fully equal in fertilizing material to 4 cart-loads of stable manure-while being pulverised, it is much more readily managed in mixing it with light garden soil. For farm crops it is equally valuable whenever the farmer can afford to pay for manure at the rate of 75 cents a waggon load, and a barrel may, in using it, be considered equal to two such loads. It should be used in the hill for corn and potatoes, and the drill for beets and carrots.

Bone dust has not generally proved so valuable here as in England. Guano must be used in the fall, or early in the spring, or it is of little value - except in parts of the country where much rain falls in summer. We can say nothing about its quality, not having had any samples lately. Allen & Co., New-York, sent us a superior article last season.

Answer #2

There are four or five varieties of the common Box, (Buxus sempervirens,) cultivated in this country. The Dwarf Box, (B. 8. suffruticosa,) in common use for edgings, is the least hardy of all, the foliage being always browned, and the ends of the shoots injured by severe winters, all over the northern states.

The Tree Box, (B. S. arborescent,) which has leaves about twice as long as those of the Dwarf Box, and grows from 2 to 10 or 12 feet high, is much hardier, and bears 10° below zero without injury. The Gold-striped Tree Box, and Silver-striped do., are varieties very ornamental in their foliage, and equally hardy.

But the hardiest of all is what is known as the Green-tree box, (B. S, angtutifolia.) It has shining dark green, lanceolated leaves, mere narrow and pointed than the common Dwarf Box, or the other sorts of the Tree Box - resembling more the foliage of the common Roman Myrtle. This Box will bear uninjured, a temperature that destroys or injures badly, both the Dwarf Box, and the other sorts of the Tree Box, and as its foliage is of a richer tint than any of the others, and as it may be kept in shape very easily, by the shears, it ought to take the place of the Dwarf Box for edgings, in the United States. This varie-ty is more common about Washington, and in Maryland, than in northern gardens. It deserves to be cultivated more generally.

Answer #3

Pea comb - low in front and firm on the head, without falling over to either side, distinctly divided so as to have the appearance of three small combs joined together in the lower part and back, the largest in the middle, each part slightly serrated. Rose or double comb - square in front, fitting close and straight on the head, without inclining to either side, no hollow in the center, uniform on each side, the top covered over with small points, with a prominent point behind.

Greenhouse and Conservatory Plants that require to be placed out in the open air to complete their growth and ripen their wood, may often be made to highly decorate some bank, corner, or odd place about the premises, instead of hiding them away back of the sheds or outhouses.

Tomatoes will bear more abundantly, and occasion the least trouble, if the ends of the shoots, just beyond the fruit, are pinched off. A surface mulch of rotten manure, and if a dry time, frequent watering, well repay in increased size and abundance of fruit.

Herbaceous Plants, as soon as they have done flowering, may be easily propagated by cuttings. These should be planted in a cold frame in a mixture of sand and loam, and kept shaded until roots have formed.

Fuchsias should be shaded from the mid-day sun. It is a good time now to make cuttings and propagate.

Transplanting of annuals, tomatoes, cabbage, etc., should never be done when the ground is wet. It is also a bad practice to puddle the roots, that is, to wet and so mud the roots by dipping them in a pail of mud as to cause them to adhere together. Our most successful practice in transplanting is to plant in the dry ground, when the earth pulverizes fine like meal; sift the earth among the roots until the hole is half filled with earth; then fill the hole with water, and as soon as it has soaked away, draw in dry soil to finish and level the surface.