Watching each day, for the friends I knew would soon be coming, I found the first shoots of the hardy phlox, which I knew to be G. Von Losburg and Miss Lingard.  Double blue bachelor buttons, self sown, were there, some transplanted to fill in the bare spots, and poppies; I didn’t know what color they would be, for the wind and the birds had sown the seed; but the leaves were a beautiful grey-green, and I let them grow.  I had almost given up the double baby breath (gypsophila paniculata, fl. pl.), but finally it came all the way down the bed, about every five or six feet, between the delphinium and the phlox.  There were perhaps a dozen plants of phlox, a dozen of belladona delphinium and six baby breath through the middle of the bed, and on each side a row of the intense blue Chinese delphinium.

Just outside these, and next to the forget-me-nots and tulips, are the bachelor buttons, and, coming through it all, a hundred candidum lilies, their waxy white blossoms glistening in the sunshine, and the perfume so heavy you knew they were there long before you could see them.  The poppies, too, were there; they were double, like a peony, rose-pink with a white edge.  I was glad I let them grow, for I don’t think I ever saw a more beautiful sight.

I let it all grow and bloom as long as it would, hating to touch it for fear of spoiling all.  Finally I was obliged to clear away the old stalks, and it looked rather bare for a time.  But I brought some white asters from the reserve garden.  The Baron Hulot gladoli were soon in bloom.  The phlox sent up tiny shoots for new bloom from the base of each leaf, and the second crop of bachelor buttons came along.  White schizanthus along the edge, covered up the old forget-me-nots, and funkia lilies (subcordata) threw up their buds.  The delphinium all began to bloom again, the grey-green leaves of the baby breath was still there, and soon my bed was all abloom again and staid so the rest of the summer.

But never did it equal the glory of those first ten days of July.

The Fall-Bearing Strawberries.

CHARLES F. GARDNER, NURSERYMAN, OSAGE, IA.

(SO.  MINN.  HORT.  SOCIETY.)

There are now such excellent varieties of fall bearing strawberries on the market that a person can have no good excuse for not planting some in his garden.  Select the ground for the bed where you will get the whole benefit from the rays of the sun.  I want no trees, bushes, or tall growing plants of any kind near the bed.  The farther away, the better.

The earth should be made quite rich with well rotted compost.  I like the plan of preparing the bed a long time before you get ready to set your plants.  You can then work the soil over, time after time, and every time kill a crop of weeds.  More plants are set in the spring than any other time, but they will grow and do well if set in midsummer or any time after that up to the middle of October.  Get through