108 A GARDENER BOTANIST. 



" wild-goose plum," the history of which is pictuiesque. A man 

 shot and buried a wild-goose, and from its grave there sprang up 

 in the following season a plum-tree, which bore good fruit. The 

 bird presumably had been feeding on wild plums, and from a stone 

 concealed about its person at the time of its death the tree had 

 issued. But wild-geese are wanderers, and their powers of flight 

 are great, so that it was impossible to say where this one had last 

 regaled itself, while the sort of plum on which it had fed does not 

 seem yet to have been identified. 



On the subject of the strawberry, Mr. Bailey makes an historical 

 statement to which we must take exception ; it seems at least 

 misleading. The earliest attempt, he tells us, at the methodical 

 amelioration of this fruit by cultivation was made little more than 

 two centuries ago, about 1660. It is true that the varieties now 

 cultivated may have been introduced so recently, for they all 

 come from America, and their merits are not likely to have been 

 discovered till that continent became well known. But if wild 

 American strawberries appeared in gardens only in the middle 

 of the 17th century, wild native strawberries were there two cen- 

 turies earlier, and to some degree were ameliorated by man's care. 

 For this we have the evidence of Shakespeare, who makes King 

 Richard III. remark on the " good strawberries " he had seen in 

 the Bishop of Ely's garden, in Holborn. This little episode, it is 

 needless to remark, is not of Shakespeare's imagining. He found it 

 in Sir Thomas More's history, and Sir Thomas as a youth lived in 

 the household of Cardinal Moreton, from whom he is supposed to 

 have obtained his materials, and Moreton was the very Bishop of 

 Ely in whose garden these strawberries grew. At the same time, 

 it would appear that our indigenous strawberries were not very 

 amenable to the cultivator's art, for old Fuchs observes that straw- 

 berries grow in gardens, but better in woods. 



It would be easy to go on in Mr. Bailey's company to the dis- 

 cussion of other points aud problems, — in fact, the only difficulty 

 is to stop. We should much like to say somethiug on the vexed 

 question of the permanence of varietal forms, which suggests itself 

 in connection with many flowers and fruits, and especially with 

 the apple. Does a variety which depends for its propagation on 

 grafting, or any similar process, tend inevitably to run out ? or is 

 it as stable as if propagated in orthodox fashion, by seed? In 

 other words, does a graft start a new life, or merely carry on an 

 old one ? To such a question different answers are given, whether 

 by theorists or practical men, and accordingly it seems useless to 

 start a discussion from which probably there will be no definite 

 result. An interesting question it is, nevertheless, and in this 

 respect it does but resemble many others which arise from the 

 perusal of this very interesting book, which we trust we have said 

 enough to commend to the attention of our readers. 



John Gerard. 



