286 The Mexican Ever-Bearing Strawberry. 



THE MEXICAN EVER-BEARING STRAWBERRY. 



By George W. Campbell, Delaware, O. 



In the recent somewhat lively discussion upon the claims of this so-called 

 new strawberry, attention seems to have been principally directed to the 

 question as to whether it is really new, or simply the old Alpine. How- 

 ever interesting this may be to the botanist, it is of little importance to 

 the fruit-grower as compared with the question, whether it is a berry of 

 good quality, and of character, and habits of growth and productiveness, 

 such as render it desirable and profitable for general culture for the garden 

 or market. It is many years since I discarded the Alpines for general 

 worthlessness, regarding none that I have ever tasted as of any value. I 

 graduated on Stoddard's Washington Alpine some twenty years ago ; and 

 I have never found any difference since then, except in the names, of New- 

 land's Mammoth Alpine, and more recently in Higley's Ever-bearing, and 

 now in the Mexican Ever-bearing. To the appreciation of an ordinary ob- 

 server, and so far as I can determine, they are, if not identically the same, 

 so nearly allied as to pass for the same variety, — the old Fragaria vesca. 

 This variety is said to perpetuate itself true from seed ; and, in the case of 

 the before-mentioned Stoddard's Washington Alpine, the originator had 

 planted seed of the old Alpine in a boggy corner of his garden, which had 

 been filled up with rich earth some eight or ten feet ; and he produced both 

 plants and fruit so extraordinary in size, that he really believed he had a 

 new and valuable variety. As soon, however, as the plants were removed 

 to ordinary garden -soil, v/ith common culture, it degenerated into its nor- 

 mal character, and became simply the old Red Alpine. So of Higley's 

 Ever-bearing and the Mexican. I had the former a year ago last winter oi 

 fall, and have grown only the Mexican the present season. A comparison 

 of them with the fruit and plants exhibited at the late session of the Ameri- 

 can Pomological Society at Philadelphia convinces me that my former im- 

 pression was correct ; namely, that they are identical. Now, as to the 

 value of this berry, by whatever name it is called, my experience teaches, 

 that in ordinary soil, and with ordinarily good culture, it is utterly worth- 

 less. It is singularly unproductive, never yielding any thing like a decent 



