No. 2. 



77*6 Strawberry Plant. 



61 



exception of Harper or Harvey,* who wrote 

 the results of the London Horticultural So- 

 ciety's classification of the diflerent straw- 

 berries cultivated in Enti^land. He is silent 

 on the subject of staminate plants, and ap- 

 pears to iiave had as little practical knovv- 

 ledire of the character of the plant, as he 

 had of the Hebrew psalter. 



From the prairies of Iowa, I have twice 

 had strawberry plants sent me with the 

 same result. There were both staminate 

 and pistillate plants. The fruit of the latter 

 was very small, and never produced a single 

 berry, unless impregnated by other plants. 

 The staminate plant, in favourable seasons, 

 will perfect half its blossoms ; in others, but 

 few. The fruit is a light scarlet, and where 

 it perfects but three or four berries to the 

 plant, the fruit will measure upwards of four 

 inches. If used for impregnation, it requires 

 constant watching. It is of such vigorous 

 growth, that if but one plant were planted 

 to fitly pistillate plants, it will in two years 

 root out the others. For twenty years I 

 kept patches of the staminate and. pistillate 

 Hudson strawberry, in separate departments, 

 to set new beds from, so as to be certain not 

 to have too many barren plants. Neither 

 bed ever produced a single fruit, unless as a 

 matter of curiosity, I placed a single plant 

 of the latter by the former, when a certain 

 portion were always impregnated, and bore 

 perfect fruit. When in blossom, the plants 

 may be distinguished at the distance of 20 

 feet. Our market gardeners can distinguish 

 them by the stem and leaf. In raising from 

 seed, I have had about an equal quantity of 

 staminate and pistillate plants. Not one in 

 fifty of the former would produce a single 

 berry. I have raised thousands in a single 

 year, but I never raised one of what Mr. 

 Downing calls a. natural plant; not one in 

 which both organs were perfect in the same 

 blossom. I never saw a pistillate plant, 

 separated from all others, bear a perfect 

 fruit. Hovey's very superior seedling, by 

 itself, as obtained by us, in the West, from 

 his nursery, and from others, never bore a 

 perfect fruit. I saw a like bed of it in this 

 place, with many defective berries, but not 

 a smgle perfect fruit. I have seen this the 

 case on the banks of the Ohio, where there 

 were one and a half acres of this variety. 

 The bed had been set out the fall previous, 

 and a press of business had prevented the 

 gardener from putting out male plants. Had 

 he done so in the fall, even one to twenty, 

 they would have had possession of near half 

 his ground. The elder, Mr. Prince, more 



* My memory does not serve me certainly of his 

 name. 



than twenty years since, conversed with me 

 on this subject. He was aware of the ex- 

 istence of barren plants, whicii he desig- 

 nated as blind plants, and the necessity of 

 having one blind to ten or twelve bearing 

 plants; but the blind plants so speedily 

 rooted out the bearing vines, that he was 

 impressed with the belief thnt the bearing 

 vines produced a portion of blind plants in 

 running. In raising seedlings, it is a matter 

 of great importance to be able to dis^tinguish 

 the staminate from the pistillate plant, be- 

 fore running; to cut them out, as they will 

 before the plants are fruited, root most of 

 the pistillate plants out. Is not Mr. Down- 

 ing under a mistake in describing the Hud- 

 son as a necAcf/ fruit"? This is one of our 

 largest, best flavoured, and most productive 

 strawberries, where male plants are inter- 

 spersed. I have known it well for fifty 

 years, in New Jersey, Philadelphia, and 

 Ohio, but never saw one with a neck. On 

 the contrary, the stem and hull are so much 

 imbedded in the fruit, that it is difficult to 

 separate the fruit with the fingers. The 

 strawberry cultivated in England under this 

 name, and said to have been received from 

 New York, is described as a yiecked fruit, 

 and I presume Mr. Downing has taken the 

 description from English works, and not per- 

 sonal observation. I wish to draw his atten- 

 tion to it, that he may correct the error, if 

 he be in error; for where its pistillate cha- 

 racter is understood, it is the most valuable 

 to cultivate for market. In the spring of 

 1844, a single wild staminate plant was 

 brought me, from a field in Kentucky. 

 This spring I sent it to our Horticultural 

 Society, with 200 hundred perfect berries. 

 Separate from staminate plants, it would 

 not have produced even an imperfect berry. 

 In justice to Mr. Downing's views, I 

 should say, I have never met with an Eng- 

 lish or Scotch gardener who would even 

 admit the existence of plants not producing 

 a full crop of fruit, from a defect of organs. 

 When I have in their own gardens pointed 

 out ten staminate to one pistillate blossom, 

 the former all barren, and the latter with 

 perfect fruit, they gave a shrug of the 

 shoulders — said they had never before no- 

 ticed the difference in the character of the 

 blossom, and that no such difl^erence existed 

 in Europe. Mr. Buist, the intelligent horti- 

 culturist of Philadelphia, denied my princi- 

 ple, certainly so far as Kean's seedling was 

 concerned, as it yearly never failed to pro- 

 duce a full crop of large fruit. He showed 

 me a full bed, then opening its blossoms, 

 which were all pistillate plants, and not the 

 true Kean, which is a .«taminate plant, and 

 so figured in their publications! and so seen 



