Small Fruits hi the South. • 115 



Fragaria Chilensis, which is native to the great mountain system extending 

 through Western, North and South America; and (6) from the other most 

 vahiable strawberry species of the world, Fragaria Virginiana, found wild 

 from the extreme north to Florida, and westward to the Rocky Mountains. 

 The first importations of these two American species disappointed French 

 and English gardeners because of their non-productiveness; but as time 

 passed more plants were brought over the sea which did better. Eventually 

 the fact (so well known to us), was discovered and appreciated that the seeds 

 of these American strawberries produced widely differing varieties, and by 

 this method of propagation there was scope for very great improvement. It 

 is not strange that European gardeners should have been slow in learning 

 this fact, for the two species hitherto known to them, the Alpine and Hautbois, 

 reproduce themselves from the seed without material differences. In time, 

 foreign horticulturists vied with each other in producing new and celebrated 

 varieties, and it would seem that the strain derived from the Fragaria Chi- 

 lensis took the lead as promising the best results abroad. 



In the earlier stages of horticulture in this country almost all of our cul- 

 tivated fruits were imjDorted from Europe, and the leading strawberries in 

 our gardens bore foreign names. In the North, and under high and careful 

 culture, many of these succeeded well. Some have justly maintained their 

 popularity in many regions to the present day, as for example the Jucunda 

 and Triomphe de Gand. But the great majority were soon found not to be 

 adapted to our climate. It is a fact which is now very generally recognized 

 by well informed fruit growers that the Fragaria Chilensis strain, of which 

 the Jucunda is the best type we have, is an element of weakness in all varie- 

 ties when planted on light soils and under a Southern sun. But just here we 

 face our chief difficulty. How are we to detect this Chilensis strain, this ele- 

 ment of weakness? In the first place, it was for generations crossed or 

 breeded into our hardy Virginian species, that was also imported into Eng- 

 land; and in our own land the same process has been continued indefinitely, 

 sometimes by a direct cross, like that made by President Wilder, between 

 Hovey's Seedling and La Constante, but more often by sowing the seeds of 

 fine berries of fine varieties whose pedigree could not be traced, and whose 

 blossoms had been fertilized from other untraceable kinds growing near. 

 Hereditary traits will continue in strawberry plants as well as in j^eoples to 

 the end of time, and the ancestor of some variety that we set out this sju-ing 

 may first have received its dash of the Chilensis strain a century ago, and 

 have been crossed with it a score of times since. Therefore in the majority 

 of the cultivated strawberries of to-day we find the two great species of the 

 world, the Chilefisis and the Virginiana, inextricably blended and, as has been 

 said, that to the degree that the Chilensis element abounds in a variety that 

 kind will falter and fail under a Southern sun. Even at the cooler North, 

 on rich loamy land, many varieties in which this foreign strain abounds will 

 not thrive. The fruit-stalks mildew or rust and the foliage burns or scalds. 

 How often we have seen this of late in varieties, that, like the Great American 



