If the garden happens to be situated on ground hanging to the south, it should be formed into terraces one above the other; and this is particularly applicable to strawberries, which may then be gathered without stooping: indeed the same expedient may be used artificially, where the ground is naturally flat, as represented in the vignette [fig. 234] to this Fragment. Strawberry-beds may be thus made: confine the earth at bottom by a brick wall about two feet high, then slope the mould to the height of three or four feet, and cover the whole with bricks or tiles, leaving the spaces betwixt for the roots of the strawberry plants. On the summit, a channel, or trough, is left open in the bricks to receive water, either from showers or from the watering-pot: the moisture is conveyed to the roots of the plants without injuring the fruit, which is, by this means, kept dry and clean, and a little forwarded by the reflection of the heated bricks: these should be occasionally secured by mortar, to keep them in their places. Such a raised bed, when covered with strawberries, either in blossom or in fruit, is one of the most delightful of garden luxuries; and even when the leaves begin to decay, it has been observed, in Sir W. Temple's works, that a most grateful fragrance is produced.
