THE 8TEAWBERKY CULTURI8T. V 



Figure 1, are called perfect, natural, bisexual, or hermaphrodite varie- 

 ties. Figure 2 shows the staminate or male blossom, and Figure 3 the 

 pistillate or female. A plant of the first kind will bear fruit without 

 reference to any other ; the pistillates are only productive when plant- 

 ed near a perfect or a staminate variety, by which it is fertilized ; and 

 a staminate is, under all circumstances, barren. 



Fig. 1. Fig. 2. Pig. 3. 



The war of words that has raged relative to the sexuality of the 

 strawberry, ever since the days of Keen, who reported his observations 

 to the London Horticultural Society in 1809, has been both instructive 

 and amusing. The tenacity with which certain parties hold to the 

 theory that pistillates are and ever will be the most productive, would 

 certainly be worthy of admiration if exhibited in a better cause. 

 Claiming, as they do, that the strawberry has been placed in the 

 wrong class by botanists, and that the discovery of the fact that there 

 exist certain varieties which possess only one sex of the organs of 

 reproduction instead of two, was the stepping-stone upon which the 

 cultivator could, if he would, reach a higher grade in the scale of pro- 

 gression than it was possible for him to do in the absence of this won- 

 derful discovery. They have kept alive this contest for half a cen- 

 tury ; and still, every season, when the strawberry breaks forth into 

 bloom, it recommences. 



For my own part, I do not expect to see this question settled by dis- 

 cussion ; it rests with cultivators to say whether they will encourage 

 the introduction of varieties that necessitate the cultivation of two for 

 the sake of getting a good crop from one, and at the same time be 

 subjected to the labor and extreme difficulty of keeping the varieties 

 separate when planted in the close proximity always necessary to in 

 Bure perfect fertilization. 



