THE STRAWBERRY 267 



advantageously be made through the agency of 

 roots and runners rather than with the seed, there 

 is no longer any necessity whatever that the seed 

 should be retained. There are a good many 

 scores of them on a single fruit; and the draft on 

 the energies of the plant required to produce this 

 large quantity of concentrated germinated mat- 

 ter must be very marked. 



So when the strawberry has been induced to 

 give up the seed-producing habit altogether, de- 

 voting its fruit energy to the production of the 

 juicy pulp of its unique product, the plant itself 

 will advantage by the change, while at the same 

 time gaining added favor with the fruit lover. 



Nothing has hitherto been done toward reliev- 

 ing the strawberry of its seeds, because hitherto 

 the plant developer has been more concerned to 

 increase the fruit itself and has given small 

 thought to the seeds or has ignored them alto- 

 gether. 



But the briefest inspection of different straw- 

 berries will show that they differ a good deal as 

 to relative abundance of seed; and there is no 

 reason to doubt that the plant developer who 

 undertakes this selective breeding with an eye to 

 the preservation of plants that show a tendency 

 to minimize the seed product, will gradually 

 develop a race of seedless strawberries. 



