262 THE SMALL FRUITS OF NEW YORK 



Other species had practically ceased, and the strawberry in North America 

 and Europe had passed from a minor to a major fruit in the two continents. 



There has been much speculation as to what the stimulus or stimtili 

 were that started the strawberry on this unwonted career of improvement. 

 Perhaps no other fruit has had more careful and diligent study as to origin 

 and the means employed to bring plant and product to present perfection 

 than the strawberry. Beginning with Duchesne in 1766 down to the present 

 time, one or more men well trained in botany and pomology have searched 

 the records and studied wild and cultivated plants of this fruit to determine 

 its origin, the means of amelioration, and in particular the stimuli that started 

 it, a hundred years ago, to produce larger and better-flavored fruits. 



Space does not admit of a detailed review of the work of these straw- 

 berry students since the results as published run into several monographs 

 and many technical papers. Perhaps what has been learned in the extended 

 and excellent studies of the origin of this fruit may be best summarized 

 by quoting from the four men who have last given the evolution of the 

 strawberry studious attention with the view of determining how the large- 

 fruited strawberries came into existence. 



Sturtevant believed that the modem strawberry is derived through 

 hybridization of two European and two American species. He ' summarizes 

 his belief as follows: 



" The modern varieties vinder American culture have usually large 

 berries with more or less sunken seeds, with the trusses lower than the 

 leaves, and seem to belong mostly to the species represented in natiu-e by 

 Fragaria Virginiana, although there are supposed hybridizations with 

 Fragaria Chiloensis, and, in the higher flavored class, with Fragaria elatior. 

 Certain it is that in growing seedlings from our improved varieties reversions 

 often occur to varieties referable to the Hautbois and Chilian sorts, from 

 which hybridization can be inferred. I have noted as of common occur- 

 rence that seedlings from high-flavored varieties are very likely to furnish 

 some plants of the Hautbois class, and even scarcely, if at all, distinguishable 

 from named varieties of the Hautbois with which there has been opportunity 

 for close comparison. From large berried varieties of diminished flavor, 

 and which occasionally throw hollowed berries, the reversion occasionally 

 produces plants unmistakably of the Chilian type. In other cases we have 

 noticed reversions to forms of Fragaria vesca. These circumstances all 

 lead towards establishing the mingled parentage of our varieties under 

 cultivation, and render the classification of cultivated varieties somewhat 

 difficult." 



Trans. Mass. Hort. Soc. 200, 201. 16 



