EVER-BEARING STRAWBERRIES 



By P. de Vilmorin, Paris, France 



I have very little to add to the history of everbearing strawberries as 

 it was published by my father in 1898 (Journal of Royal Horticultural So- 

 ciety) beyond what has since been done at Verrieres in the way of improving 

 the varieties described. 



Within the last few years the St. Joseph and especially the St. Antoine 

 de Padoue strawberries have proved to be very good and prolific plants. 

 Wherever the water supply is sufficient to keep them growing they gave all 

 through the summer and as late as October a great crop of large, well- 

 flavored fruits, fetching high prices when sent to the market. Nevertheless 

 the size of the late fruits cannot be compared with that of some of the big 

 June strawberries, and our object has been to increase that size. 



Crosses were made in 1897 by my father between St. Joseph and different 

 varieties of the large-fruited strawberry. Almost all of them resulted in 

 the production of more or less everbearing plants. One with Edouard Leport 

 proved to be specially good; it had large fruits and was propagated for dis- 

 tribution. 



In 1898 more crosses were tried with St. Joseph and the result was the 

 same. One seedling (St. Joseph X Noble) much better than the others, with 

 very large and well-shaped fruits, will very likely become a good garden 

 variety. 



Among the curious remarks afforded by the study of the hybrid straw- 

 berries one is especially striking and shows well how difficult it is to foresee 

 the result of a hybridization. A cross made in 1898 between St. Joseph and 

 Louis Gauthier two everbearing varieties gave birth to a plant that was 

 not everbearing. 



In 1899, 1900 and 1901 we worked on the same lines as before, only using 

 St. Antoine de Padoue instead of St. Joseph. Many seedlings are under 

 observation now and give good hopes for the future. 



It is perhaps not useless to remark that all these large-fruited ever- 

 bearing strawberries give bigger and nicer fruits on the preceding year's 

 runner than on the older plants, the latter being generally exhausted by their 

 abnormal production. 



In order to increase the strength of the large-fruited varieties and their 

 resistance to fungi my father had the happy thought of crossing them with the 

 Fragaria sandwicensis, a very healthy and vigorous species. A cross made two 

 years ago between St. Joseph X F. sandwicensis gave a plant as strong as its 

 father, with dark green leaves; the mother contributed the everbearing 

 character and the flavor to the plant. 



I am in hopes that this may mark the beginning of a new era in strawberry 

 breeding. 



