^66 THE SMALL FRUITS OF NEW YORK 



In his catalog of 1771, William Prince, Flushing Landing, New York, 

 offers four kinds of strawberries for sale: Large Hautboys, the Chili, the 

 Redwood, and the Wood strawberry. The first two we are already familiar 

 with; the Redwood was probably a variety of F. vesca, and the fourth no 

 doubt was the common wild strawberry F. virginiana. In 1791 Prince adds 

 a fifth variety, the Hudson, which was to remain long in cultivation and 

 may be named as the first American strawberry of importance. It 

 was without doubt an improved form of F. virginmna. The name of the 

 Hudson soon after seems to have been changed to Early Hudson, possibly 

 to distinguish it from Hudson's Bay, a later kind, which with the Large 

 Early Scarlet were being sold in several agricioltiiral centers in 1800. 



Perhaps the year 1800 is as accurate a date as any to put down as the 

 beginning of the strawberry industry in America. There were at this 

 date, as we have just seen, three very good varieties in commercial ciiltiva- 

 tion, cultural directions were appearing in the few agricultural papers of 

 the times, and the New England Farmer, a cyclopedia of agriculture which 

 appeared in 1823, and at once became the standard authority of the country 

 on farming, had published a " system " of strawberry culture. 



Important historical items now appear in rapid succession, few of which 

 can be amplified in this brief review. The next one worthy of note is the 

 introduction of the Pine strawberry, which was of importance because from 

 it have come nearly all of the varieties now cultivated in America. This 

 strawberry, one of the first varieties of F. chiloensis to be widely cultivated 

 in Europe where it was common in England and France by the middle of 

 the eighteenth century, had possibly been brought to America before the 

 close of the century but no record of such an introduction appears imtil 

 1804 when it was mentioned in The American Gardener, the first American 

 book wholly devoted to horticulture. 



Horticvdture as a profit-making industry at the beginning of the nine- 

 teenth century had its seat about the four large cities of the coiintry, Boston, 

 Nev/ York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. One may glean many items from 

 the news and horticultural papers, as well as from the books on fruits which 

 were now appearing, to show that by 1825 commercial strawberry growing 

 was an important industry about the cities named. At this time the leading 

 varieties seem to have been Large Early Scarlet, Hudson Bay, Early 

 Hudson, and Crimson Cone, the histories of which are set forth in the chapter 

 on varieties. 



Ciiltural methods were still primitive and mostly derived from Euro- 



