132 THE STRAWBERRY IN NORTH AMERICA 



hardiness." This view was commonly accepted by the 

 horticulturists of that period. The rampant growth of 

 runners and the deeply imbedded seeds of the Charles 

 Downing were marked indications of F. virginiana blood. 



The Charles Downing became a great commercial 

 variety. Between 1875 and 1890 it was a close com- 

 petitor of the Wilson. Ten of its descendants are in 

 cultivation today, most of them coming through the 

 Windsor. These are : Enhance, Ham, Hazel, Marconi, 

 Mary (of Alley), ^Millionaire, Nina, Reba, Reliance and 

 Robinson. We now have but two varieties, the Elma and 

 the Robbie, that have descended from the Kentucky, 

 another notable seedling of Downer's Prolific. 



Several other varieties of some prominence have been, 

 beyond question, of F. virginiana blood in part. One 

 was the Bidwell, which was widely grown for home use 

 between 1880 and 1895. This variety was produced by 

 Benjamin Hathaway, of Little Prairie Ronde, Michigan, 

 by crossing, to quote from him, "what I call the Pistillate 

 Scarlet, that came out through three or four generations 

 from the old Virginia Scarlet," with Wilson, Sharpless and 

 Glendale as pollinizers.^ The INIichigan, another noted 

 variety produced by Hathaway, was this same Pistillate 

 Scarlet crossed with Burr's Seedling. It was widely 

 planted between 1865 and 1875. Hathaway's statement 

 of the origin of these two varieties was verified by T. T. 

 Lyon. 



Botanical evidence. — This completes the evidence of 

 history in support of the contention that F. virginiana has 

 entered largely into the lineage of the modern strawberry. 

 There remains the evidence of botany. At first thought 

 it might seem that it should be comparatively easy to 

 1 Proc. Amer. Pom. Soc, 1881, p. 55. 



