-^ EDUCATED FRUITS 193 



that noted epicure and preacher, Henry Ward 

 Beecher, denounced as *'the wickedest berry 

 that was ever indulged with liberty. It is an 

 invention by which the producers make money 

 out of the consumers' misery. It has every 

 quality of excellence except in the matter of 

 eating. ... It might live in a sugar bowl and be 

 acerb and crabbed still." 



There were luscious berries in Beecher's day, 

 but the public had no chance to buy them. And 

 to-day? Listen to Professor Fletcher: "Aroma 

 has been sacrificed as well as flavor. A handful 

 of the early Pines and Scarlets perfumed a room 

 with delightful and appetizing fragrance. Few 

 contemporaneous sorts have more than a faint 

 and fleeting aroma." Among those that have 

 aroma and flavor are Brandywine {sit venia 

 verbo!), Monarch (ditto), Longworth's Prolific, 

 and some Texas varieties which Burbank 

 crossed with Chilean, Virginian, and Californian 

 sorts before he reached the ideal berry referred 

 to, after he had grown and fruited some half 

 million seedlings, representing every comer of 

 the world. 



The time may come when every man will be 

 his own gardener, and then all will be able to 

 enjoy such berries. To be sure, considerable hor- 

 ticultural skill is required to raise strawberries, 

 and everybody is at the mercy of rain and shine. 

 The sun is needed to supply the fragrance and 

 flavor, and as for rain or irrigation, "it is defi- 



