I20 MAINE AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. I906. 



of our modern varieties have come directly or indirectly from 

 this one source. 



The American strawberries then are lineal descendants of the 

 old Pine class, known to botanists as Fragaria annassa and 

 Fragaria grandiHora, and this type (species?) as conclusively 

 shown by Bailey* is a direct rriodification of the American 

 species Fragaria Chiloensis. 



The ■ history of the production of later varieties is simply 

 a repetition of the work started by Hovey ; — a history of cross- 

 ing and selection with reference to certain specified ideals or in 

 many cases of fortuitous variation and chance discovery. It 

 has been thought that a common perfect flowering variety 

 might impress itself upon a pistilate sort, through its pollen, to 

 such an extent as to efifect an immediate modification of the 

 quality or character of fruit.y But further study invariably 

 reverses any such conclusion. Much valuable work, however, 

 has been done, and is being done, in the systematic combining 

 of characters of different varieties by crossing and in the 

 " selection of the most coveted." Attempts to modify the 

 habit of strawberry plants by change of environment have not 

 been particularly successful ; though some forms, like the Parker 

 Earle, show a strong tendency to curtail the runners, and 

 varieties strongly resistant to fungus attack are numerous. 



GRAPE 



The grape has for many years been the object of systematic 

 work by American horticulturists. It is worthy of note, how- 

 ever, that many of the varieties most highly prized at the 

 present day, — including Catawba, Isabella, Vergennes, Herbe- 

 miont, Norton's Virginia and others — are simply chance seed- 

 lings, discovered in the wild, and domesticated by some careful 

 observer. Some of the varieties named have given many 

 seedlings of merit, besides the definitely recorded crosses made 

 in more recent years. Catawba, for instance, has given Diana, 

 lona and many others ; while Concord, which was a chance 

 seedling discovered by Ephriam W. Bull and first sent forth in 

 1853, is the parent of a large family of valuable sorts including 



* Am. Nat., 28, 301. 



t Proceedings of the American Pomological Society, 1885, p. 66. 



