8 



fifty varieties, adding new and rejecting old sorts from year to 

 year, so that many of the candidates for popular favor have 

 been fairly tested. 



A NEW DEPARTURE. 



A new departure was made in 1806, by one Michael Keen, a 

 celebrated English gardener, who introduced the tk Imperial," 

 which he grew from seed, and subsequently, from seed of the 

 Imperial, what was long known as "Keen's Seedling." This 

 was a wonderful fruit for the time, being large, productive, and 

 of good flavor and habit of growth ; but it did not succeed in 

 this country, and was soon supplanted by more hardy sorts. 

 The London Horticultural Society, in 1821, had executed a col- 

 ored plate of this strawberry (not a very rare thing now), indi- 

 cating its high appreciation of its merits. 



The success of Keen excited scores of others to attempt the 

 growing of better varieties from seeds, and from that time to 

 the present, seedlings have been numerous. Little was done in 

 this country, except in imitation of English practices, till about 

 1834, when Mr. C. M. Hovey produced and introduced what has 

 since been known as " Hovey's Seedling," a fruit hardly sur- 

 passed by the best varieties of the present time. 



Little or nothing was generally known in this country, at the 

 time when the Hovey appeared, relative to the sexuality of the 

 strawberry. The wild plants were all perfect flowering, or stam- 

 inate, and the effect of cultivation in producing pistillate varie- 

 ties had attracted but little notice. Mr. Longworth, of Ohio, 

 was among the first to take a decided stand on this question, 

 and the war on the subject was long, if not bloody. Mr. Long- 

 worth made a standing offer if history is not at fault of one 

 hundred dollars, to any one who would produce a perfect berry 

 from a pistillate plant, unless the same was fertilized by a stam- 

 inate variety. No claim was ever made for the money, and 

 the correctness of his position is now generally conceded by all 

 intelligent pomologists. 



The great success attending the production of seedling straw- 

 berries has incited those engaged in the business to try and im- 

 prove other small fruits by similar methods, and \\ith almost 

 equally favorable results. This has been accomplished by sow- 



