32 THE STRAWBERRY IN NORTH AMERICA 



Ovata. His best berries sold in Washington and Balti- 

 more for seventy-five cents a quart when common stock 

 brought ten or twelve cents a quart. ^ Pine varieties, 

 however, including the Hovey, formed but a very small 

 part of the strawberries brought to market. Excluding 

 the wild berries, it is likely that over ninety per cent of 

 the strawberries marketed before 1858, when the Wilson 

 came rushing to the front, were pure varieties of F, 

 virginiana, chiefly Large Early Scarlet, Hudson's Bay, 

 Early Hudson, Crimson Cone and Methven Scarlet. 

 Stimulating effect of the pollination discussion. — The 

 leadership in straw^berry production attained by Cin- 

 cinnati, about 1845, was due largely to the earlier accept- 

 ance by the growers of that neighborhood of the proposi- 

 tion that pistillate varieties must be inter-planted with 

 staminate sorts in order to be most productive. Until 

 the introduction of the Hovey, no attention had been 

 given to the subject of pollination by North American 

 growers, although the necessity for mixed planting had 

 been pointed out years before. The subject was first 

 brought prominently before the public by Nicholas 

 Longworth, of Cincinnati, Ohio. The controversy over 

 "Longworth's Theory," from 1842 to 1848 ^ had a most 

 stimulating effect on strawberry culture, wholly aside 

 from the greater certainty that resulted in the cultivation 

 of pistillate varieties. It set people to thinking and 

 investigating for themselves, instead of blindly accepting 

 the opinions of authorities. Hundreds of voluntary ob- 

 servations and experiments on cross-pollination were 

 reported in the horticultural press while "the strawberry 

 question," as it was called, was before the public. There 



1 Rept. Ind. Hort. Soc, 1898, p. 70. 



* See Chapter III for a full discussion of this subject. 



