106 THE STRAWBERRY IN NORTH AMERICA 



"Third: Those called 'hermaphrodite/ or 'perfect/ 

 having both sets of organs (stamens and pistils) appar- 

 ently well developed. They are not generally good and 

 certain bearers as we should expect them to be. With 

 few exceptions, they bear poorly, owing to some unob- 

 served defect, probably in the pistils. 



" Fourth : A rare class, a sort of subdivision of the pre- 

 ceding, has not only hermaphrodite flowers, but also some 

 on the same truss that are of pistillate character, and 

 sometimes in the same plant a truss will be seen on which 

 all the flowers are pistillate." 



It was also stated as the conviction of the Society, 

 "that the sexual characters of each seedling will be re- 

 tained in its increase by runners so long as the variety 

 remains extant, except for minor variations." 



This carefully prepared statement would seem to show, 

 beyond question, that true male plants, wholly devoid 

 of pistils, were common at that time. The most striking 

 characteristic of these male plants was extreme vigor. 

 "If you plant but one staminate to twenty pistillates, 

 the staminate will, in two years, take entire possession 

 and root out the pistillates," asserted Longworth. "Hav- 

 ing no fruit to exhaust them, they make ten new plants 

 where the pistillates form one." ^ As late as 1875, J. M. 

 Smith, of Green Bay, Wisconsin, warned growers not to 

 allow male plants to take possession of the beds. Not- 

 withstanding this disadvantage, Longworth and his 

 neighbors preferred these exuberant males for planting 

 with pistillates and could see no advantage in growing 

 the hermaphrodite sorts, even as pollinizers for the 

 pistillates. So firmly convinced was Longworth that 



1 "The Culture of the Grape and Wine-making," by Robert 

 Buchanan, p. 124 (6th ed., 1860). 



