PACKAGES, TRAINING, POLLINATION 105 



not nearly as valuable for that purpose as pure male 

 plants, hence they should be discarded. At his request, 

 the Cincinnati Horticultural Society appointed a com- 

 mittee to investigate the subject. On June 13, 1846, 

 this committee reported : 1 " No staminate plants can be 

 depended upon by the cultivator as heavy bearers, al- 

 though, from some unknown causes, the pistils may be so 

 well developed as to be followed by a good crop some 

 years and in some situations. 



" There is no such thing yet known to us as a perfect 

 flowering strawberry plant in which the blossoms will 

 all be uniformly so well provided with both sets of organs 

 as to be followed with perfect fruit every year. 



" The only method of producing this delicious fruit with 

 any degree of certainty is to set out plants of both the 

 sexual classes, the relative proportions of each to be deter- 

 mined by experience." 



On April 15, 1854, "after examining millions of blos- 

 soms," J. A. Warder, the Secretary of the Society, pub- 

 lished the following "finality" on the subject: 2 



"Wild or cultivated, the strawberry presents, in its 

 varieties, four distinct forms or characters of inflorescence : 



"First: Those called 'pistillate' from the fact that the 

 stamens are abortive and not to be found without a dis- 

 section of the flower. These require extrinsic impregna- 

 tion. 



"Second: Those called 'staminate,' which are per- 

 fectly destitute of even the rudiments of pistils and are 

 necessarily fruitless. 



^'Culture of the Strawberry," by Nicholas Longworth, in 

 "The Culture of the Grape and Wine-making," by Robert 

 Buchanan, 6th ed., 1860, p. 136. 



2 The Country Gentleman, 1854, p. 267. 



