2 THE STRAWBERRY IN NORTH AMERICA 



been a land of wild strawberries. The first settlers at 

 Jamestown, in 1607, found them in abundance. Captain 

 John Smith mentioned, among other fruits found in the 

 new Eldorado, "strawberries which ripen in April." One 

 of the early colonists reported to his friends in England 

 that when he went into the woods he came upon great 

 areas of land overgrown with these plants, and the berries 

 were "four times larger and much more exquisitely 

 flavored" than the wild strawberries of England.^ In 

 fact, so abundant were the berries, another man declares, 

 that in walking through the woods around Jamestown 

 "it was impossible to direct the foot without dyeing it 

 in the blood of this fruit." ^ Some may consider this 

 statement colored by the vivid experiences of the ex- 

 plorer; but certainly not the report of conservative 

 Ralph Hamor that there were "great fields and woods 

 abounding with strawberries, much fairer and more 

 sweete than ours." 



As fast as the Virginia settlers cut down the forests, 

 strawberries sprang up in the clearings. When the fields 

 had been cropped to exhaustion with corn, wheat, and 

 tobacco, they were abandoned and new ground cleared, 

 as was the custom in the prodigal husbandry of that 

 period. These old fields soon abounded with wild straw- 

 berries. For a century or more after the settlement of 

 Virginia, wild strawberries were so plentiful that "very 

 few persons take care to transplant them, but can find 

 enough to fill their baskets, when they have a mind, in 

 the deserted old fields." 



The wild strawberries of New England. — Meanwhile 

 the Pilgrims, the Massachusetts Bay colony, and other 



^ Percy's Discourse, p. xliii. 



2 Force's Historical Tracts, Vol. III. 



