PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION. 



/^N page 338 of this volume will be found the following 

 ^^^ words : " To attempt to describe all the strawberries 

 that have been named would be a task almost as intermi- 

 nable as useless. This whole question of varieties presents 

 a different phase every four or five years. Therefore I treat 

 the subject in my final chapter, in order that I may give 

 revision, as often as there shall be occasion for it, without 

 disturbing the body of the book. A few years since certain 

 varieties were making almost as great a sensation as the 

 Sharpless. They are now regarded as little better than 

 weeds in most localities." Now that my publishers ask me 

 to attempt this work of revision, I find that I shrink from it, 

 for reasons natural and cogent to my mind. Possibly the 

 reader may see them in the same light. The principles of 

 cultivation, treatment of soils, fertilizing, etc., remain much 

 the same. My words relating to these topics were penned 

 when knowledge — the result of many years of practical ex- 

 perience — was fresh in memory. Subsequent observation 

 has confirmed the views I then held, and, what is of far 

 more weight in my estimation, they have been endorsed by 

 the best and most thoroughly informed horticulturists in the 

 land. I wrote what I then thought was true ; I now read 

 what has been declared true by highest authorities. I have 

 more confidence in their judgment than in my own, and, 



