258 On different varieties of Straioherries; 



This is the objection to Wilmot's Superb strawberry: it is so 

 defective in the female organs, that with me, not one blossom 

 in fifty will produce a perfect fruit; but in a stiff clay it would 

 bear belter. From the appearance of the vine of your straw- 

 berry, I anticipate a very large fruit; but I shall not risk it 

 wiihout a male Hudson near, except it be a single plant as an 

 experiment. The moment I can see the blossom, I shall be 

 as well satisfied as after cultivating it for years. 



1 have been surprised to. find no English gardeners that un- 

 derstood the true character of the strawberry. There is no 

 strawberry that produces abundantly and very large fruit, 

 where the male and fenmle organs are perfect, in the same 

 blossom. In some varieties only, it amounts to a complete 

 separation of the sexes; in others, those abounding in the fe- 

 male organs never bear a perfect fruit. Those abounding in 

 the male organs sometimes produce a fair crop, and where a 

 iew fruit only, it is often very large. I am the more sur- 

 prised at this, as the discovery was made by Dachesne, and 

 communicated to Linnaeus, and his views are sustained by all 

 writers of eminence who have written on the strawberry since 

 his day. In raising from seed, both kinds are produced, but 

 if suffered to run together, as the male vine is the more vigor- 

 ous, it will make ten new plants where the female produces 

 one, and will soon root out all the bearing plants. In all the 

 monthly and white variety of the strawberry that I have seen, 

 the male and female organs are perfect in every blossom, and, 

 as a natural consequence, the fruit is never large. The small 

 Virginia scarlet produces about half a crop of delicious fruit, 

 but it is always small. I add a sketch of a male and of a fe- 

 male blossom of the Hudson strawberry. 



8 9 



Female flower. Male fowtr. 



You will observe the male blossom is largest. By sepa- 

 rating the hull from the stem of the female plant, the fe- 

 male organs will be found attached to the stem, and the male 



