Discrepancies of Strawberry-Culture. 29 



on others. But the Albany Seedling has maintained its high character as 

 a market-berry wherever it has been planted. In its wonderful faculty of 

 adaptation to all soils and all climates, it resembles the wild berry of the 

 Laplanders, and the prolific native from which the Minnesota Indians an- 

 nually gather such quantities of fruit as to astonish the whites for whom 

 they collect it. But it is only as a commercial product, as the berry for 

 the million of unsophisticated consumers, that the Wilson is referred to. 

 The epicurean will utterly reject it. 



A new era seems to be opening on us with the discovery and dissemina- 

 tion of the " President Wilder," in which all the conditions required by the 

 market-gardener and the amateur appear to be combined. It comes before 

 the public so vouched for as to inspire full confidence in its value. It has 

 been well tested, and has not been found wanting. There have been in- 

 stances in which the advent of a new horticultural variety has established 

 an era in the art. This long-cultivated pet of Col. Wilder may open a 

 fresh one in strawberry-culture. Should it take kindly to the multiplicity 

 of soils on which it is sure to be speedily planted, it will be likely to super- 

 sede a multitude of contemporary novelties, and take its place among the 

 few varieties everywhere recognized as standards for the field and garden. 

 Its advent, moreover, is a sure evidence of domestic progress. Great as 

 the " President Wilder " may be, it points to something even greater here- 

 after. Mr. Boyden is reported as having said, that, with twenty years' 

 cultivation, he can produce strawberries as large as pine-apples, warranted 

 to retain all the flavor of the fruit. His faith, therefore, in what the future 

 will accomplish, is so abounding, that others may be excused for being 

 hopeful of what is to come. 



With this experience of the strawberry, now extending over two centu- 

 ries, one would think that Americans should by this time have placed the 

 art of cultivating it among the exact sciences. They have thus elevated 

 both Indian corn and the potato, — two products which the continental pio- 

 neers first discovered when they landed here, and now grown up into 

 staples so commanding, that, if blotted out of existence, entire communities 

 would experience a like calamity. But the history of strawberry-culture 

 during the past twenty years, when most attention has been given to it, is 

 crowded with discrepancies and contradictions which it seems impossible 



