202 OUE COMMON FETJITS. 



where it succeeds better than in any other locality. How 

 this came to pass is not known, for the original hero, or 

 rather, perhaps, it should be said heroine, was also what 

 is called a female plant, bearing imperfect blossoms, and 

 M. Frezier was no botanist to discover this fact himself, 

 or to notice with what other kinds it was planted, or 

 whence the fructifying pollen was supplied to its pistils. 

 Though less known in or near Paris, it continues to be 

 the strawberry par excellence in many other parts of 

 [France. The colour is pale red, the shape often deformed, 

 and it is said that it has been grown at Cherbourg so large 

 as to be 7-^ in. in circumference. 



Another French Fragaria, the date and place of whose 

 origin is chronicled with minute exactitude in the volume 

 of Duchesne, is noted for blazoning on its scutcheon of 

 pretence but a simple single leaf, instead of the ordinary 

 triple one ; but as this is its chief or only peculiarity, 

 it need not be further adverted to ; for though our own 

 fruit may not be able thus to boast a series of biographies, 

 the race has at least a history, and one sufficiently in- 

 teresting to claim some space for consideration. 



That " Strabery rype" was one of the common cries of 

 London, at least as early as in the days of Henry VI., 

 we learn from the verses of Lydgate, who died in 1483 ; 

 and that it needed no " Society" in those early times to 

 mark out its culture as a fitting part of the " Employment 

 of Women " is shown by the directions issued by Ttisser's 

 farmer to his dame : 



" Wife, into the garden, and set me a plot 

 With strawberry roots, of the best to be got: 

 Such growing abroad among thorns of the wood, 

 Well chosen and picked, prove excellent good." 



Though it may be true enough that in its wild state 



" The strawberry grows underneath the nettle," 



yet, since among all the hypotheses as to his original 

 occupation, it has at least not yet been advanced that our 

 greatest poet was a gardener by profession, we may be 



