The culture of the strawberry affords one of the best illustrations of the benefits and effects of pinching. The runners of this plant may be viewed in the light of wood-growth, or the increase of the plant by extension; even though these slender threads are not permanent, and they only serve to convey a bud to a distance from the parent plant, and place it under favorable circumstances for the formation of a natural layer. They are but annual productions, and hence there is no considerable deposit of woody matter, as in the limbs of trees, but they are thrown out from the parent plant just like woody branches, and are so much substance withdrawn from it, which, if retained or thrown back upon the plant, would have resulted in an enlargement of the main stem of the strawberry plant, and in the development of buds upon the crown, which become stored with the proper juices that result in the production of more abundant blossom buds. The result, however, is so admirable an illustration of this important element in the management of permanent and woody fruit-trees, that we may well look at an herbaceous plant, be it even so humble an individual as the prostrate earth-berry, as our ancestors called the delicious _Fragaria_. DWARFING THE APPLE Apples are generally dwarfed by working them upon the French Paradise stock, which is a very diminutive tree or bush, seldom rising more than a few feet high. This is the true stock for those who wish to indulge in the luxury of dwarf apple trees. Such are very appropriate for the small garden, or for the specimen grounds of a nursery establishment, and they sometimes make beautiful objects in the lawn or among the shrubbery, but they are wholly unsuited for orchard planting, as many a poor deluded purchaser has found out to his sorrow, a few years after having been beguiled by the smooth-spoken tree peddlers, who have sold many thousands through the country to farmers to plant as orchard trees. There is a more vigorous stock which has been used for the same purpose, but it possesses much less dwarfing power. It is called the Doucin, or English dwarfing stock. This, however, exerts so little of the dwarfing influence, that at the end of eight or ten years the trees are generally about as large as those worked upon free stocks; but it happens unfortunately that early fruitage, the great object of dwarfing, is not attained by their use, for they will not have produced any more fruit than the common trees similarly treated.