NOTES ON THE STRAWBERRY QUESTION. 



25 



experience has taught us that at least all 

 these sorts are permanent in the habit of 

 bearing blossoms of the same character, 

 and good crops of fruit. 



Besides this, we are pretty well satis- 

 fied, from careful observation, (and not 

 from theory,) that many of those kinds of 

 Pine strawberry, (such as Keen's Seedling, 

 Ross^ Phcefiix, etc.,) originally bearing blos- 

 soms perfect in their proportion of stamens 

 and pistils, are more or less liable to be- 

 come unproductive by running out, or varj^- 

 ing from their original form. Still more 

 recent examination of the subject, leads us 

 to think that this variation usually consists 

 in the pistils becoming abortive or imper- 

 fect. 



This tendency to variation renders these 

 stamen and pistil bearing varieties (stami- 

 nates of Mr. Longworth,) much less cer- 

 tainly to be depended on for a crop than 

 those varieties, the blossoms of which bear 

 only pistils — pistillate sorts. 



So far, Mr. Longworth and ourselves dif- 

 fer so little, that the difference is of no prac- 

 tical value. 



When, however, he says that no stami- 

 nate sorts, as for example, Keen^s Seedling, 

 i?05s' Fh(B?iix, Swainsto7ie's, etc., will ever 

 bear good crops, we must be allowed to dis- 

 sent, because we, as well as thousands of 

 other cultivators, have often seen very fine 

 crops of these varieties. 



Mr. Longworth says truly, that Keen, 

 and other noted English market growers of 

 the strawberry, have made fortunes by 

 these sorts. Everyone knows that "Keen's 

 Seedling," (a fine old variety that in our 

 climate is not so productive as abroad, be- 

 cause the pistillate portion of its blossoms 



often becomes abortive,) has held its place in 

 Great Britain at the head of all strawber- 

 ries for general culture, for the last fifteen 

 years. It is as evident, as that 2 and 2 

 are 4, that the English, who are by no 

 means novices in gardening, would not cul- 

 tivate for market, year after year, sorts that 

 do not bear one-third of a crop ; and that a 

 " barren staminate" sort, like Keen^s Seed- 

 ling, would not hold the first rank against 

 dozens of new sorts raised and dissemina- 

 ted every year, if it had not productiveness 

 among its characteristic qualities. 



On the other hand, and this is the real 

 pith of the matter, when Mr. Longworth 

 says that pistillate varieties of the Pine 

 strawberry, properly cultivated, yield far 

 larger and more certain crops than any 

 others, he is undoubtedly quite correct. 

 This is the great practical turning point of 

 the Cincinnati mode of strawberry culture, 

 made public by Mr. Longworth. It is not 

 that the English growers, or staminate sorts, 

 do not produce good crops, but that the Cin- 

 cinnati growers, and their mode of choosing 

 only pistillate softs, (with a small proportion 

 of stamen bearing plants near by,) always 

 give enormous crops — far exceeding any 

 hitherto grown. The fact that the market 

 of Cincinnati was last year supplied with 

 about four thousand bushels of strawberries, 

 at an average of six cents a quart* — the 

 largest and cheapest supply known in any 

 city in the world, is the best evidence of 

 the extraordinary result of their mode of 

 rejecting all but pistillate sorts — with a 

 small admixture of the staminates to fer- 

 tilize them. — Ed. 



* We learn that it is judged the total amount offerea in 

 that market Uiis year Hill exceed 6,000 bushels.' 



