Il8 MAINE AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. I906. 



original introduction from North America. It is singular thai 

 a kind of so much excellence as to be scarcely surpassed by any 

 of its class, should have been the first known. It continued in 

 cultivation considerably more than half the period of its exist- 

 ence as a garden fruit without any variety having been produced 

 of it, either by seed or by importation from America."* At 

 this time, however, (1824), Barnet described 26 well marked 

 varieties of the species, at least 4 of which seemed to have come 

 directly or indirectly from America, and probably from wild 

 plants. Thus at the opening of the nineteenth century consider- 

 able progress had been made in the amelioration of the straw- 

 berry by simple and unsystematic selection. The varieties, 

 however, were much alike and gave little promise of the wonder- 

 ful development which so soon followed. 



About 1712 a second American species, Fragaria Chiloensis, 

 was taken from Chili to Marseilles by a Captain Frezier. It 

 reached England in 1727. The plant is stout, thick leaved, 

 rather coarse, bearing large, globular, somewhat pointed, late, 

 dark-colored fruit. The flowers are often imperfect and fail to 

 become fertilized. The species met with but little favor aiid 

 at the time Barnet wrote, a century after its introduction, so 

 little variation had occurred that only 3 varieties which could be 

 referred to this species were known, and one of these was con- 

 sidered identical with the original plant as introduced by 

 Frezier. The plant was also grown to a very limited extent in 

 France, but there seemed little save size of fruit in the parents 

 of this species, and less in its record under cultivation, to comr 

 mend it to the attention of the horticulturist. 



Some 50 years after the introduction of the Chilian straw- 

 berry, a third type made its appearance in Europe. No one 

 knew just how or when it came. Because of the pineapple 

 fragrance of its fruit, it was commonly known as the Pine 

 strawberry, and was described and figured as such by 

 Phillip Miller in 1760.! There were many theories as to 

 its origin but none were more probable than that of Duchesne 

 who, in his Natural History of Strawberries ini776 i described 



* Transactions London Hort. Soc, 6, 152, 1824. 



t Gardener's Dictionary. 



X Histoire Naturel de Frasiers, par M. Duchesne fils 



