THE SMALL FRUITS OF NEW YORK 363 



Bailey, writing a few years later than Sturtevant, doubts the theory 

 that hybridity was the starting point of the present race of cultivated straw- 

 berries and concludes, after a painstaking review of the literature and a 

 thorough study of wild and cultivated strawberry plants, that the garden 

 strawberry is a direct modification of F. chiloemis. His ' answer to the ques- 

 tion Tinder which he writes " Whence Came the Cultivated Strawberry? "is: 



" There is only one conclusion, therefore, which fully satisfies all the 

 demands of history, philosophy, and botanical evidence, and this is that 

 the garden strawberries are a direct modification of the Chile strawberry. 

 The initial variation occurred when species were thought to be more or 

 less immutable, and, lacking exact historical evidence of introduction from 

 a foreign country, hybridization was the most natural explanation of the 

 appearance of the strange type. This modified type has driven from culti- 

 vation the Virginian berries, which were earlier introduced into gardens; 

 and the original type of the Chilian strawberry is little known, as it tends to 

 quickly disappear through variation when impressed into cultivation. 

 The strawberry is an instance of the evolution of a type of plant, in less 

 than fifty years, which is so distinct from all others that three species have 

 been erected upon it, which was uniformly kept distinct from other species 

 by the botanists who have occasion to know it best, and which appears to 

 have been rarely specifically associated with the species from which it 

 sprung." 



Bunyard,2 an able and carefiol English pomologist and a student of 

 the origin and evolution of hardy fruits, is of the opinion, as set forth in 

 the following brief quotation from an admirable paper on The History and 

 Development of the Strawberry, that this fruit is an admixture of species. 

 The quotation is as follows : 



" In conclusion the writer submits that the history of the Straw- 

 berry offers but little support to those who believe in the paramount 

 influence of cultivation in the production of new forms. Its entire develop- 

 ment has been due to the introduction of new species having some quality 

 not possessed by existing varieties and its admixture with these by cross- 

 breeding." 



The last investigator to publish at length on the origin of the strawberry 

 is Fletcher' whose monograph on The Strawberry in North Atnerica is a 

 model of excellence in the study of the evolution of a cultivated plant. In 

 this work the whole trend of Fletcher's discussion of the origin of the straw- 

 berry shows his belief that the garden form is a hybrid. 



' Bailey, L. H. Am. Nat. 28:293. 1894. 



^ Jour. Roy. Hort. Soc. 39:550. 1913-14. 



'Fletcher, S. W. The Strawberry in North America 137, 138. 191; 



