SEED-VESSELS WE EAT 223 



vated strawberries of Europe and America. The 

 garden strawberries of this country trace their 

 ancestry to this Chilean species. But the strange 

 thing about it is that we cannot succeed with the 

 Chilean plant when it is brought from our west 

 coast, where it grows wild. It must come by way 

 of European gardens. 



The flavor and color of our own wild straw- 

 berries are deserving of perpetuation in gardens. 

 But who can blame the discouraged gardener for 

 dropping everything else, and grasping the new 

 opportunities that opened to him when the Wilson 

 variety appeared! It suddenly became possible 

 for every garden to have a bed of strawberries 

 with big clusters of luscious fruit. Until the 

 Wilson came, no strawberries were seen in our 

 city markets, and none were grown outside the 

 special gardens of the rich. This wonderful dis- 

 covery, that everybody could have all he pleased, 

 came about 1854. 



A few people I have known were unable to eat 

 strawberries. But it was not because they did not 

 like them: they keenly felt the deprivation. We 

 all think, as did Doctor Boteler in "The Com- 

 plete Angler " : " Doubtless God could have made 

 a better berry, but doubtless God never did. " 



The name of the genus is Fragaria, meaning 



