THE SMALL FRUITS OF NEW YORK 36 1 



1624. From France, in turn, it was taken to England where it seems to 

 have immediately found favor for it was soon widely cultivated by the 

 English who made importations of both seeds and plants from the United 

 States and Canada. In time it became an escape from cultivation, and 

 undoubtedly hybrids arose in both gardens and the wild in many parts of 

 Europe. 



The berries of the Virginian strawberry are handsome in color and 

 form and delicious in taste and aroma but run small and no art of the culti- 

 vator seems to increase their size. For more than a hundred years only the 

 wild form could be found in English gardens despite the widely different 

 environment under which it must have been grown both there and on the 

 continent. Like the European species it seemed incapable of great varia- 

 tion. Two himdred years after its introduction in Europe, and after wide- 

 spread cultivation in Great Britain, but twenty-six named sorts were listed 

 by Barnet, writing for the Transactions of the London Horticultural Society 

 in T824. 



A few varieties of the Virginian are still grown in England, chiefly for 

 jam, and in the list of varieties described in this text as American sorts 

 perhaps a score are pure-bred offspring of Fragaria virginiana. As a hybrid, 

 as we shall see, it probably plays a very important part. 



The several botanical varieties described in Chapter XV vary con- 

 siderably in their value in the garden ; therefore for use in attempts at 

 amelioration or for plant breeding. Unfortunately these comparative 

 values are not yet as well determined as might be wished. 



THE CHILEAN STRAWBERRY 



The most conspicuous landmark in the domestication of the straw- 

 berry is the introduction of the Chilean, Fragaria chiloensis, in Europe early 

 in the eighteenth century. This species, as will be set forth in the dis- 

 cussion of its botany, is a native of western South and North America in 

 the mountain ranges near the coast and might perhaps better be called 

 the Pacific strawberry. It was taken from Chile to France in 171 2 by a 

 Captain Frezier, thence to England at least as early as 1727. 



Little seems to have come from the Chilean strawberry for a hundred 

 years after its introduction into Europe and then its rapid amelioration 

 became one of the most remarkable phenomena recorded in pomology. 

 Within a half century after this marked improvement began, as indicated by 

 the introduction of many new and better varieties, the cultivation of all 



