356 THE SMALL FRUITS OF NEW YORK 



After the currant and gooseberry, however, it has been longest ctdtivated 

 of small fruits in North America, where it has been grown in gardens per- 

 haps two centuries and in commercial plantations about a century. Indeed, 

 as we shall see later, and as the study of its botany shows, the garden straw- 

 berry may well be called a New World fruit as it is derived mainly from 

 species native of the Americas, and New World varieties, which greatly 

 outniimber those of the Old World, have originated almost wholly in North 

 America. 



The manner of domestication and evolution of the strawberry, as 

 to main events, persons concerned, dates and places, are fairly well known. 

 Its botanical derivation, however, is still obscure desp'.te the fact that species 

 of wild strawberries of pomological promise do not number a dozen and but 

 three or four of these have as yet awakened the interest of breeders. The 

 difficulty is that the few species under cultivation have been hybridized 

 to such an extent that a vast entanglement of strawberries has restilted. 

 The early nomenclature of cultivated forms is a labyrinth of confusion in 

 which no one can now find his way with surety. 



Several notable botanists and pomologists have studied Fragaria, 

 and the history and development of its cultivated offspring assiduously, 

 yet no two arrive at the same conclusions as to the exact origin of the 

 modem cultivated strawberry. All historical evidence seems to have been 

 collected and examined by competent minds, without establishing whether 

 the cultivated strawberry belongs to a single species, and what, or whether 

 it is a hybrid and of what. 



If the reader will turn to Chapter XV, The Systematic Botany of the 

 Strawberry, he will find descriptions and botanical data on all species of Fra- 

 garia, varieties of which are now cultivated or have been at one time or one 

 place or another, whence have come by a tortuous route of hybridization 

 the several thousand sorts grown in modem times. It is the purpose in 

 the next few pages to give the history of the domestication of these several 

 species and to tell as well as may be what part they have played in the 

 evolution of our modern strawberry. The five species are F. vesca, 

 F. moschata, F. viridis, F. inrginiana, and F. chiloensis. These have been 

 named in order of their introduction and in that order will be considered. 



THE EUROPEAN OR WOOD STRAWBERRY 



The common strawberry of Europe, the European or wood strawberry, 

 is Fragaria vesca. This is the species in the minds of Old World pomologists 



