10 THE STKAWBERKY CULTUKIST. 



Before leaving this sexual question, I will state a few facts derived 

 from study and experience. 



All the botanists that have ever classified plants according to. the 

 Linnsean or artificial arrangement have uniformly placed the straw- 

 berry in Icosandria, which class is founded upon the circumstance of 

 the number and position of the stamens being more than ten, and situ- 

 ated on the calyx. Therefore it is evident that all of the old botanists 

 found the different species of the strawberry uniformly of this charac- 

 ter. Had it not been so, they would certainly have mentioned the 

 fact, or have placed it in another class ; but none of them ever dis- 

 covered a strawberry in its normal condition varying sufficiently to 

 warrant them in changing it from the position where it was first 

 placed in botany. 



Since the natural arrangement of botany has come into use, no 

 botanist has attempted or dared to question its right to the position it 

 held in Icosandria of the artificial or Rosacece of the natural arrange- 

 ment. If, as has been claimed, the strawberry in its wild state uni- 

 formly produced flowers containing only pistils, and others with only 

 stamens, then, under the Linnaean system, it would have been placed 

 in Dicecia, or Class 20. 



Now the question arises, whether we shall declare that all botanists 

 whose reputation for scientific attainments is unblemished were wrong, 

 and that a few would-be botanists are right, or vice versa ? Or shall we, 

 laying all prejudice aside, acknowledge that the scientific botanist is 

 right, and that these changes which have been observed are the effects 

 of cultivation and hybridization, or were caused by changes in the 

 vegetable kingdom, the result of the gradual change of the face of the 

 country, consequent upon the march of civilization, which does often 

 in a manner affect even the indigenous plants of the country ? Thus, 

 the wild strawberry of North America is found to produce varieties 

 having no stamens, and occasionally they are found growing wild; 

 but whether these wild plants are offsprings from cultivated pistillates 

 it is impossible to determine, but it is reasonable to suppose that they 

 are, as pistillates were not discovered wild until cultivated pistillates 

 were common. 



To show that the pistillate is not the normal condition of the straw- 



