DESIRABLE CHARACTERS IN A VARIETY 173 



Some of our best dessert varieties contain about five per 

 cent of sugar and one per cent of free acid. Tart or 

 brisk sub-acid berries are preferred for canning as they 

 retain the distinctive strawberry flavor after cooking; 

 milder sorts are more desirable for eating while fresh. 

 There is no demand for a sour or acid berry or for a variety 

 with a flat, neutral flavor, and but little for a very sweet 

 berry. Sub-acid sorts appeal most strongly to a majority 

 of consumers. Berries as sweet as the Ladies Pine and 

 Burr's New Pine would not find as much favor on the 

 market now as sub-acid varieties like Marshall, although 

 appreciated by the few people who cannot eat any kind 

 of acid fruit with impunity. 



The best English varieties are sweeter than ours ; they 

 are more commonly eaten without sugar. What the Eng- 

 lish varieties gain in sweetness, however, is lost in sprightli- 

 ness ; they lack the racy, wild flavor of our William Belt 

 and Brunette, which is perhaps due to the larger infusion 

 of F. virginiana in North American varieties. There is 

 no evidence that the flavor of a variety is affected to any 

 extent by the soil in which it is grown ; but climate, es- 

 pecially the amount of sunshine and water, modifies flavor 

 as well as firmness and color. 



Quality. — Quality in a strawberry is a combination of 

 flavor, texture and aroma. The aroma of a fresh, ripe 

 strawberry, derived mainly from volatile oils and esters, 

 is most enticing. The appeal of the strawberry is to the 

 sense of smell as well as to that of taste. Commercial 

 ideals have so completely dominated strawberry breed- 

 ing since the introduction of the Wilson that it is doubtful 

 if the varieties most commonly grown now average as high 

 in quality as in 1854. Then the strawberry was mainly 

 a garden fruit, although grown in limited quantities for 



