56 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY, 



seed from pistillate or staminate varieties, and they will come 

 up staminate or pistillate, all mixed up. I do not think any 

 one can fortell which way it will run. I think Prof. Hansen 

 has had experience in that line. In my experience they some- 

 times run one way and sometimes the other, and I do not be- 

 lieve it is possible beforehand to tell which way they are go- 

 ing. If you plant, for instance, a perfect flowering variety, if 

 the seed is taken from a berry of a perfect flowering kind, you 

 are just as apt to get two-thirds pistillates, and if you plant 

 seeds from pistillate varieties you are apt to get staminate 

 plants. 



Prof. Hansen : My experience and the observations I have 

 made correspond with those of Mr. Gardner, You cannot tell 

 anything about it. The bees have been too busy with the 

 blossoms of former generations, and heredity goes back fur- 

 ther than our work. At Ames several years ago we crossed 

 the wild strawberry from Manitoba with the Bederwood and 

 the Warfield both ways, and we could not establish any rule 

 at all. 



Mr. Hartwell: While the professor is on his feet I would 

 like to ask him a question. I spent most of my life as a peda- 

 gogue, and I am not so familiar in ihis line of work as I might 

 be, but as a grower it has occurred to me that doubtless there 

 are types of strawberries and those types are so well defined 

 that it might assist an originator in making his selections. I 

 would like to have him give us the history of the strawberry, 

 and what was the origin of those types. For instance — those 

 of you who are familiar with it — there is the Longfellow, which 

 has dropped out of the market. It was a dark red berry, a 

 long berry, from which it probably took its name, but it 

 seemed to have the Warfield type of color and something of 

 the foliage. Capt. Jack has the same type, the dark color and 

 the foliage, the foliage being of very large size, while the 

 Warfield has the type of the Crescent, and having the type of 

 berry of which, possibly, the old Charles Downing was a speci- 

 men of. The Clyde is something of the class of the Ruby. 

 The question is, so far as its being of value is concerned, could 

 we follow these types in the development of new varieties? 

 What I want to know of the professor is if he can give us the 

 history of the varieties from their origin. I believe some of 

 these berries are importations brought from other parts of the 

 world, while others have been developed on native straw- 

 berries. 



