206 OUR COMMON FETJITS. 



this overgrown giant is so greatly inferior in other re- 

 spects as not to admit of comparison with the former ; 

 and the "British Queen," therefore, characterized by the 

 further virtue of being an immense bearer, reigns still, 

 unrivalled as her namesake. High-bred fruit like this, 

 however, compares with the original kinds much as the 

 high-bred cattle of scientific farmers do with the hardy 

 little herds of the Welsh or Scottish mountains, depend- 

 ing little on human care, and thriving almost sponta- 

 neously ; for the creatures, whether animal or vegetable, 

 which have once been fostered to an extraordinary degree 

 of perfection, require a continuance of the most unre- 

 mitting attention in order to maintain not merely their 

 excellence, but almost their existence. The little rustic 

 of the woods is therefore by no means superseded by 

 these pampered aristocrats of the garden; and though 

 not the handsomest, is still far from being the worst of 

 the sorts now cultivated, while it will flourish under cir- 

 cumstances which would be fatal to more delicate kinds ; 

 and, nurtured by richer soil and a sunnier situation, ma- 

 tures not only larger but better berries than can be found 

 in forest growths ; for sunshine seems essential to sweet- 

 ness, and fruit grown in the shade is generally acid. 



Had we never known the luscious outgrowth which 

 follows them, the strawberry might still have been wel- 

 comed in our gardens, were it only for the sake of the 

 fair flowers which so profusely adorn it. Rising from 

 within a pale green 10-cleft calyx, its five white petals 

 and ring of numerous stamens numbering three or four 

 to each petal in European kinds, and five or six in those 

 of America surrounding a little central mound formed 

 by the ovaries, it presents an appearance very similar to 

 that of the common buttercup, but on examination proves 

 to diifer from it in the circumstance of the stamens not 

 rising directly from the receptacle beneath the ovaries, 

 but seeming rather to grow out of the sides of the calyx, 

 a fact which distinguishes it from the often poisonous 

 Polyandria of Linna3us and Ranunculacece of Lindley, 

 and classes it with the ever-wholesome Linnsean Icosan- 

 dria and Lindleyan Rosacece, or rose-like flowers. The 



