THE AMERICAN STRAWBERRY 1 85 



varied into more than twenty forms, many of 

 which were the choice of all the varieties. One 

 of these, in the extra choice class, was Keen's 

 Seedling, which was at this time just coming 

 into great importance. This variety was, 

 in fact, the first worthy contribution to our 

 present commercial strawberry culture, and 

 an epoch maker. It was produced from the 

 seed of Keen's Imperial, this latter being 

 raised from the White Carolina, or Large 

 White Chile. Barnet regards this last as 

 a true Pine strawberry. 



The present English strawberries have to 

 a great extent descended from Keen's Seed- 

 ling. In 1 82 1, at London, the fruit of this 

 seedling was first shown. There were appar- 

 ently few, if any, varieties in England at 

 this time that were of American origin. 

 In 1828, Prince writes, of the thirty straw- 

 berries in American gardens, all but one were 

 of foreign origin. The two most important 

 varieties, as well as the ones which supplied 

 practically all of the fruit sold in the New 

 York market, were Red Chile (which is 

 classed by Barnet and Lindley with the 

 Pines) and Early Hudson (which was un- 

 doubtedly a variety of Fragaria Virginiand). 



