110 THE STRAWBERRY IN NORTH AMERICA 



ments exist which prove that it was grown in the early 

 part of the fourteenth century in France. The Royal 

 Gardens of the Louvre, under Charles V, possessed no 

 fewer than 1,200 plants, and many other records testify 

 to the appreciation of the fruit by its presence in French 

 gardens of this period.'^ 



References in early English writings. — The strawberry 

 did not appear in English writings until about 1430, 



when John Lydgate wrote a 

 song called " London Lick- 

 penny," in which he refers to 

 "straeberry rype" as a street 

 cry of London. The earliest 

 illustration of the strawberry is 

 in the Mainz "Herbarius," pub- 

 lished in 1454, as '' Fragaria." 

 This old herbal describes its 

 supposed medicinal properties 

 at length, but no mention is 

 made of culture. In the " Privy 

 Fig. 9. — Drawing of the Pursc Expenses of Henry VIII," 

 strawberry in Parkinson's for 1530, there is an item for the 



"Paradisus Terrestris," pub- , « ,, ,,, « , 



lished in 1629. purchase 01 a pottle 01 straw- 



berries" for 10 d. The pottle 

 was a very small basket, shaped like an inverted cone, 

 often holding less than half a pint ; it is evidence of the 

 small size of the fruit at that time. The pottle was used 

 somewhat near Boston about 1820 (page 76). The Wood 

 strawberry must have been brought into cultivation 

 about then, for in 1556 Ruellius said it produced larger 

 fruit when grown in the garden. In Tusser's " Five Hun- 

 dred Points of Good Husbandry" (1557), we read, 

 under "September's Husbandrie": 



