THE SECRETARY'S PORTFOLIO. 329 



nothing, they may in the end prove very expensive plants, and the persons using 

 them will be very apt to amuse themselves practicing false economy. 



To attempt to enumerate all the varieties of strawberries that have beeu 

 originated, named, and thought worthy of cultivation in Europe and America 

 since the introduction of Hovey's seedling, to say nothing of the tens of 

 thousands that have been raised and rejected after a year or two as unworthy 

 of even a name, would fill a volume. Downing alone, in his late edition of 

 '^ Fruit and Fruit Trees of America," describes some four hundred varieties. 

 As the names of all the leading varieties in cultivation at the present day can 

 be found in most nurserymen's catalogues, I will )iot name them, but will 

 merely remark that strawberries, like many other of our best cultivated fruits, 

 seem to arrive at a certain degree of perfection, health, vigor, and productiveness, 

 and then to degenerate to such a degree as to become comparatively worthless 

 in a few years ; therefore a constant renewing by cross-bred seedlings seems 

 necessary to keep up the health, vigor and fruitfulness of the species. 



The progress that has been made in productiveness the last three hundred 

 years is very difficult to ascertain, but the difference in the size of the fruit 

 and value of the seed is very remarkable. In 1593 Thomas Hyll writes: 

 "Strawberries be much eaten at all men's tables in the summer with wine and 

 sugar, and they will grow in gardens until the bigness of a mulberry." The 

 English mulberry is about three-quarters of an inch in diameter, and some of 

 our newest and best varieties of strawberries will grow from one inch and a half 

 to two inches and a half in diameter. There can be no doubt therefore, that 

 we have made great improvement in the size of the fruit in three hundred 

 years. 



But if, as an old writer says in 1578, strawberries were '''in savour (or 

 fragrance) very pleasant," and we should judge alone from the fragrance of 

 that very popular variety of late years, the Wilson's Albany, most persons 

 would incline to the belief that we had retrograded on this point. We are 

 thankful, however, that many of the newer varieties have a delicious fragrance 

 as well as taste. 



In regard to seed, the Alpine strawberry is said to have been introduced into 

 France and England about the year 1764, and Mr. Duchesne, writing in 1766, 

 says: "The King of England was understood to have received the first seed 

 from Turin." It was such a rarity that a pinch of the seed sold for a guinea.' 



RASPBERRY COMPARISON". 



Secretary Galusha, of the Illinois Horticultural Society, is a good observer, 

 and grows a large number of varieties of snuiU fruits ; hence the following note 

 from his experience, at least for his locality, is valuable. In Michigan the 

 probability is that most growers would mark the Cuthbert higher on the other 

 points than quality. He says : 



I have been myself daily picking among the following named red raspber- 

 ries during the last week, comparing points, which count in estimating the 

 value of varieties, and hand you herewith, in a tabulated form, the results. 

 My land is a sandy loam, and that occupied by the raspberries is about uniform 

 in quality, about right to produce forty bushels of dent corn per acre : 



In this scale of points I give ten, not as perfection, but as the highest yet 

 reached by any variety; as, for, instance. Thwack is the hardiest, Reliance 



