SOUTHERN STRAWBERRIES 
Most of the Varieties Grown There Are Due to Skill of Two Breeders—Their 
Method of Operation—Still Room For Further Breeding 
GEORGE M. Darrow 
Bureau of Plant Industry, U. S. Department of Agriculture, Washington, D. C. 
Boul torny.. years: ago. ‘a. boy 
A named Robert L. Cloud was 
helping his father grow straw- 
berries in Louisiana for the 
New Orleans market. The varieties 
grown at that time had been im- 
ported from abroad and from the North. 
They bore soft fruit and were not 
adapted to a southern climate. He 
realized that varieties were needed 
which would keep better under the hot 
mid-day sun of the South, and he began 
trying to breed such varieties. 
Ten years later, Robert L. Cloud was 
the railroad shipping agent at Inde- 
pendence, La., and superintended the 
shipment of the first iced refrigerator 
car of strawberries ever sent to the 
northern markets. This experience en- 
abled him to see just what kind of a 
berry was needed. With such a train- 
ing began the career of one of the most 
successful of American berry breeders. 
Mr. Cloud knew the characteristics 
of all the best varieties previously grown. 
He picked out some poor varieties that 
were good shippers and some good 
varieties that were poor shippers and 
began to cross them. In 1889 he had 
already put two of his crosses, Cloud 
and Big Bob, into the trade and since the 
time of their introduction the varieties 
grown in Louisiana, as well as in some 
other parts of the South, have consisted 
entirely of those produced by Mr. 
Cloud. 
At the time of the Civil War, the 
Early Scarlet, a variety very aromatic 
and similar to wild strawberries, was 
grown in Louisiana. The Peabody- 
hoboy was the next to be taken up. 
Following this in succession were grown 
the Prince Imperial, a variety intro- 
duced from France; Mary Stuart, a 
pistillate! variety; Crescent, another 
pistillate variety; and then the Wilson. 
Next came the Cloud and Big Bob, and 
they were the leading varieties from the 
time of their introduction until Mr. 
Cloud introduced the Klondike in 
1901. Other varieties, the Lulu and 
the Pickerproof, were originated by 
him between 1888 and 1901, but neither 
proved as desirable as the Cloud and 
Big Bob. 
Mr. Cloud is still at work originating 
new varieties. In a shaded place in 
which the seed is sowed are seedlings 
just showing through the ground. In 
different parts of his fields in which he 
raises berries for market are to be 
found new varieties which he is testing 
side by side with the Klondike, the 
standard variety of his section. Two 
of his new varieties he plans to intro- 
duce at an early date. These he calls 
the Payday and Perfecto. 
THE NEWEST IMPROVEMENTS 
The Payday is the result of a cross 
between a seedling used only in breed- 
ing work and the Klondike. An inter- 
1Commercial varieties of strawberries fall in two classes: those with perfect flowers, includ- 
ing both stamens and pistils; and those whose flowers lack the male element, and are called pis- 
tillate. It is obvious that if plants of the second type are grown exclusively, the flowers can not 
be fertilized, and will produce no fruit. Tyros have sometimes planted a bed of one variety—a 
pistillate one—and have been quite astonished that it yielded nothing, although it flowered freely. 
The pistillate varieties are rapidly going out of use, growers tending to plant only perfect-flowered 
varieties in order to avoid this difficulty. The two types of flowers are illustrated by photo- 
micrographs in connection with ‘‘Ettersburg Strawberries,’’ by Roy E. Clausen; JOURNAL OF 
Herepity, VI, pp. 324-332, July, 1915. 
Dol 
