629 THE STRAWBERRY 



CHAPTER XXVI. 



THE STRAWBERRY. 



Fragaria (of species) L. Rosacece, of botanists. 



Frasier, of the French ; Erdbeerpflanze, German ; Jladbezie, Dutch , 

 Pianta di Fragola, Italian ; and Fresa, Spanish. 



THE Strawberry is the most delicious and the most wholesome 

 of all berries, and the most universally cultivated in all gardens 

 of northern climates. It is a native of the temperate latitudes 

 of both hemispheres, of Europe, Asia, North and South Ame- 

 rica ; though the species found in different parts of the world 

 are of distinct habit, and have each given rise, through culti- 

 vation, to different classes of fruit scarlet strawberries, pine 

 strawberries, wood strawberries, hautbois, &c. 



The name of this fruit is popularly understood to have arisen 

 from the common and ancient practice of laying straw between 

 the plants to keep the fruit clean. In the olden times the vari- 

 ety of strawberry was very limited, and the garden was chiefly 

 supplied with material for new plantations from the woods. Old 

 Tusser, in his " Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry," 

 points out where the best plants of his time were to be had, and 

 turns them over, with an abrupt, farmer-like contempt of little 

 matters, to feminine hands : 



" Wife, into the garden, and set me a plot 

 With strawberry roots, of the best to be got ; 

 Such growing abroad, among thorns in the wood, 

 Well chosen and picked, prove excellent good." 



The strawberry belongs properly to cold climates, and though 

 well known, is of comparatively little value in the south of 

 Europe. Old Roman and Greek poets have not therefore sung 

 its praises ; but after that line of a northern bard, 



" A dish of ripe strawberries, smothered in cream," 



which we consider a perfect pastoral idyl (as the German 

 school would say), in itself, nothing remains to be wished for. 

 We have heard of individuals who really did not, by nature, 

 relish strawberries, but we confess that we have always had 

 the same doubts of their existence as we have of that of the 

 unicorn. 



