STEAWBEEEIES. 199 



the wild Wood Strawberry, was accepted probably from 

 the earliest times as a favourite of Nature, needing no 

 culture because already endowed with every charm that 

 could delight the senses. JN"o dye could outblush its crim- 

 son glow, no preparation of the perfumer rival its power- 

 ful yet delicate scent, no inventions of Apicius surpass 

 its exquisite flavour ; and if all this excellence were com- 

 pressed within an object of very small dimensions, its 

 abundance amply permitted numerical aggregation to com- 

 pensate for individual littleness. In France, at least, it 

 was found that by transferring the plants to gardens, 

 though the richer soil caused the fruit to attain double 

 size, the fine flavour was diminished in proportion, and 

 for centuries, therefore, not only was this the only kind 

 known, but the preference continued to be given to the 

 little rustics when just fresh from their native wilds. At 

 length, however, appeared the Montreuil Strawberry, in 

 which, for the first time, a spirit of equal excellence was 

 found embodied in a larger frame. The scene of its mani- 

 festation was Ville du Bois, a place about six leagues 

 from Paris, which had been formerly covered with woods, 

 beneath the shade of which the fair little Fragaria had 

 flourished from time immemorial. But the day came 

 when the spear of the hunter, at least, was to be beaten 

 into the pruning-hook : the trees were felled, and the 

 forest became a plain ; yet the strawberries were still pre- 

 served, for a village had sprung up in the space cleared 

 by the axe, and many of its inhabitants had devoted 

 themselves to the culture of fruit. Nor had the occupa- 

 tion been adopted without a special incentive. Wood- 

 cutting had naturally been accompanied by charcoal-burn- 

 ing, and near the furnaces used for this purpose it has 

 often been observed that plants grow much finer than 

 elsewhere, and new kinds which had never been noticed 

 before not unfrequently manifest themselves, owing, per- 

 haps, to the soil being stimulated by the salts con- 

 tained in the ashes scattered upon it. In such a neigh- 

 bourhood, then, was developed a strawberry much larger 

 than the ordinary one, yet scarcely, if at all, inferior to 

 it in any other respect ; and, in order to perpetuate this 



