HYBRIDIZING STRAWBERRIES. 199 



others would be tested further. I have tried hybridization, 

 and with all the talk you had about hybridization, you will 

 find it a very uncertain thing, if you attempt to hybridize the 

 strawberry. When you have taken out the anthers and 

 impregnated the strawberry, and covered it with muslin, you 

 will find that it has been impregnated, in spite of all you 

 could do, with some other pollen that you did not mean to 

 have there. Realizing all these difficulties, I at first went to 

 raising strawberries from seeds, selecting the best berries of 

 the best varieties I could find. The result was, that I grew 

 seedlings for six or eight years without any success whatever. 

 Then it came to my mind what a stupid man I had been, 

 knowing all that time all about the botanical formation of the 

 blossom, knowing the pistillate and staminate varieties per- 

 fectly well, not to take advantage of that. Instead of hybrid- 

 izing, if I had taken a purely pistillate variety, and put it 

 away from other plants, and taken a plant of a staminate 

 variety and planted near it, a cross would have been just as 

 certain as the cross from an Ayrshire bull and a native cow. 

 It could not have been otherwise, because there are no male 

 organs to the pistillate varieties. I got that through my head 

 (only showing you that I was rather thick-headed) after 

 repeated failures in growing seedling strawberries. I will 

 mention one other thinij. I took some fine berries of "River's 

 Eliza," which grows very large and handsome fruit, which 

 were growing in the same strips where there were fifteen or 

 twenty other kinds all about it. I supposed it would be 

 crossed by some of the other varieties. I raised three hun- 

 dred seedlings, kept them separate and distinct from the 

 others, and to my surprise, I got fruit very much like the 

 parent berr}^ only not so good. After that non-success, I 

 adopted the other plan which I have just described to you, 

 and I found I had just as many varieties as I had plants. Of 

 course, a large portion were poor, but I have raised some 

 varieties that have been very satisfactory to myself, and that 

 have made their mark, undoubtedly. 



As I said before, that applies to the apple, to the pear, and 

 to all other fruits. Take, for instance, the pear. Thirty 

 years ago, say, there was hardly a first-rate pear grown here, 

 with the exception of the Seckle, save the imported varieties, 



