1892.] ESSAYS. 91 



lively few species are collected and used by the inhabitants to 

 any great extent. Those most extensively used are the follow- 

 ing : a wild strawberry, two species of raspberries, a chestnut, 

 a wahiut, a grape, and the kokmva. Huckleberries, checker- 

 berries, cranberries and blackberries although found, are, I think, 

 nowhere abundant and are practically never made use of. Some 

 two or three species of strawberries are found ; but the only one 

 of any importance is Fragaria vesca, which in some districts is so 

 abundant that the manufacture of jam from the fruit was at one 

 time an important industry. This jam, by the way, was particu- 

 larly high flavored and delicious. I have cultivated this straw- 

 berry in my garden, and have found it unusually vigorous and 

 fairly productive, the fruit being small to medium in size, 

 whitish red when ripe, and very sweet and high-flavored, with a 

 taste altooether different from that of our varieties. The chief 

 reason, however, for my mentioning the cultivation of this 

 berry, is to call attention to a peculiarity which I do not recol- 

 lect to have heard of in any other variety. We have our 

 so-called pistillate sorts in great number. This species, as 

 I cultivated it, was functionally dioecious. A certain propor- 

 tion of plants, — in my patch about one-third, — produced large 

 flowers which contained large and perfect stamens but very small 

 and imperfect pistils. These plants never produced any fruit ; 

 the flowers simply dried up. These plants were then practically 

 staminate, although the pistils were not entirely aborted. The 

 other plants produced smaller flowers with perfect pistils, and 

 stamens which were much shorter and smaller than in the flowers 

 on the first kind of plants ; but even these stamens produced 

 apparently perfect pollen. There was a little difference in the 

 habit of growth and the general appearance of the two kinds of 

 plants which, with practice, I judged would suffice to enable 

 one to select either sort at pleasure. My departure from Japan 

 interrupted the observations upon this most interesting plant 

 that I had in view for determining numerous points which will 

 occur to many of you, and my first attempt at importation 

 proved a complete failure. 



Of the raspberries, there were some three or four species com- 

 monly found ; but only two were of practical importance. One 



