98 THE STRAWBERRY IN NORTH AMERICA 



our best gardeners, that an attention to the selection of 

 the plants with reference to sex is well rewarded by an 

 increased quantity of fruit." 



As long as strawberry culture was confined to the home 

 garden, where several varieties usually were grown, one 

 of which was likely to be a staminate, there was less 

 likelihood of loss; but the numerous complaints about 

 "barren" plants and "blasted" blossoms, between 

 1800 and 1840, indicate that failure to set fruit, because of 

 poor pollination, was quite general and very discourag- 

 ing. The strawberry was known as a fickle fruit. "In 

 those days," says Parker Earle, "a mystery overhung 

 strawberry growing. Many people grew strawberry 

 plants in their gardens, but an inscrutable providence 

 withheld the fruit." 



The secret of Abergust. When field culture of the 

 strawberry began, about 1820, the loss from poor polli- 

 nation became more impressive. There was not a great 

 deal of complaint in the East, where the dominant varie- 

 ties were Large Early Scarlet, Crimson Cone and Red 

 Wood, which were staminate; but in the vicinity of Cin- 

 cinnati, where Early Hudson, a pistillate variety, was the 

 leading sort, the loss was serious. It was noticed that 

 one man, a German gardener named Abergust, always had 

 large crops of Early Hudson, which he sold for thirty-five 

 to forty cents a quart and from which he made a com- 

 petence. For many years he refused to tell his neighbors 

 how he was able to secure these remarkable results. 

 Evidently his wife figured largely in the enterprise, 

 for in 1854, Nicholas Longworth related: 1 "Until the 

 secret was disclosed, Mrs. Abergust was our only gar- 

 dener who could raise the strawberry profitably. From 

 1 Western Horticultural Review, IV (1854), p. 288. 



