The Strawberry season is beginning. For many years this fruit was poison to me; now it gives me pleasure to think that I live almost entirely upon it for some weeks in the summer, eating it three times a day, and very little else, according to the practice of Linnaeus, as quoted in March. It is of great importance that anyone who has room to grow Strawberries at all should grow several varieties-early, medium, or late (see catalogues). For ices, creams, jams, etc, I greatly recommend some of the high-flavoured, old-fashioned Hautboys; they are not very easy to get. The fruit grown on heavy soils round London for the market is often very tasteless; but one must work away with books and experience to get good Strawberries and a fairly long succession of them. In growing Strawberries, everything depends on making some new rows every year; layering the runners early, too, makes a great difference in the young plants the next year. 'Dainty Dishes' has some instructive old-fashioned receipts for Strawberry jam. Strawberries make an excellent compote if boiling syrup is poured over them. Raspberries are much better treated in this way. Currants require stewing. It improves all summer compotes to ice them well before serving.

I do not at all despise planting out the old-fashioned scarlet and crimson Geraniums-Pelargoniums, they ought to be called. Old plants are very much better than the small cuttings; but I have a few of these as well, and pots full of cuttings of the sweet-leaved kinds, of which there are so many varieties, and which are planted out the first week in June. Among red Geraniums, nothing is so fine and satisfactory as Henry Jacoby; it is a very steady bloomer, and has a fine rich colour. When you are planting out your Geraniums and cuttings, do not forget that some must be kept back in their pots and given constant care and attention all through the summer for late autumn and winter flowering in the greenhouse. We keep our plants for winter in a cold frame through the summer, and carefully pick off the flower-buds. Raspail is an excellent double variety for winter picking. One the nurserymen call 'Raspail Improved' is perhaps what it professes to be, though I do not see very much difference. It is because I live in London in the winter that I so much recommend double Geraniums, as the flowers of the single kind require to be gummed before they are packed. If not, they arrive only a little heap of scarlet petals in the paper, beautiful and lovely, but quite useless for putting into water.

My old books taught me to take an interest in Cactuses, which in the early part of the century were much grown. They are very easy of cultivation, and well worth growing for those who spend June and July in their gardens. A succession must be aimed at, as the drawback is that the blooms only last a short time. The old Cereus speciosissimus surpasses in beauty and splendour any garden plant I know, with its brilliant scarlet petals shot with the richest purple and its handsome white tassel of stamens. Another beautiful flower is the large white night-flowering Cereus; and if brought, when just about to bloom, into the hall or sitting-room, its delicious perfume pervades the whole house for twenty-four hours, if not for longer. Although Cactuses are very easy to cultivate, yet what they require they must have, or they do not flower at all, and then gardeners throw them away. Wholesome neglect is better than too much misdirected care; they want to be kept very dry, and not too warm all through the winter, but quite free from frost. In April they are re-potted, if they seem to require it; but that is seldom. Once started into growth, they want heat, light, sun, a little nourishment, and plenty of watering and syringing, with rain-water if possible; hard chalky water is bad for them. When they have done flowering, I plant them out in a good warm border till the middle of August. This does them a lot of good, and helps them very much to make new growth; they should be well syringed overhead while growing. Anyone really interested in Cactuses will learn all they want to know in a little book called 'Cactus Culture for Amateurs,' by W. Watson. The old and long-neglected taste for growing Cactuses is certainly reviving, and some of the finest kinds can be grown with very little trouble or expense. Mr. Watson is Assistant Curator of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, where there is a large collection of Cactuses. He writes as one who knows, and the book is full of practical instructions.

I have a great many Stapelias, South African plants rather resembling miniature Cactuses in their growth, and requiring the same treatment. They are very curious, and are described in a modern book translated from the German, called the 'Natural History of Plants,' as belonging to a group of plants called 'indoloid.' Sometimes the scent of these South African Stapelias resembles that of decomposing mammalian flesh, sometimes of rotten fish, etc. This, of course, attracts insects. Flowers provided with indoloid scents resemble animal corpses in their colouring, having usually livid spots, violet streaks, and red-brown veins on a greenish or a fawn-coloured background. All the same, the flowers are to me curious and rather beautiful, so entirely unlike anything else.

This month is the time to sort out the Freezia bulbs that have been drying in the sun, in their pots, laid on one side on the shelf of the greenhouse. The largest bulbs are re-potted now or in July in good strong loamy soil, but hardly watered at all till they begin to show through the earth. The next-sized bulbs are potted a month later. When the quite small ones are put into a box to grow on for next year they are too small to flower. Early potting-up of Freezias is very important if they are to flower early.