456 Retrospective Criticism. 



tion was not devoted with so much interest, neither were we so well enlight- 

 ened on the subject as we have been since : however, we planted this plant on 

 a border seventy yards distant from the nearest strawberry plant, and we are 

 pretty sure that there was not, nor had ever been, any strawberry plant in 

 any portion of the ground nearer from the time the Shawnee Indians held 

 undisturbed possession of this part of the valley of Virginia. We are, there- 

 fore, firmly inclined to believe that the plant had all the fertilizing and pro- 

 ductive powers necessary within itself. We paid a liitle attention to the 

 plant during the summer, and, by fall, found there were between sixty and 

 seventy young plants : most of them, the spring following, were taken up 

 and planted elsewhere, leaving the old plant with some ten or twelve round it, 

 in order to test the variety as soon as possible : they bore as many strawberries 

 as could be expected from any kind of strawberry in the same state, and 

 proved to be the true Hovey's Seedling. A few were again left the second 

 year, and still bore a good crop. In the summer of 1844, we planted out a 

 bed by itself (our attention having been called to the subject) not at so great 

 a distance, it is true, as the original plant was from some beds of the Hud- 

 son strawberry, but, as we thought, quite sufficient to keep them apart, the 

 intermediate space being filled up with vegetable crops. This piece of 

 ground is seventy yards in length, and six yards wide ; the strawberries 

 planted in rows two feet from centre to centre, leaving a path between each 

 row, the ground, in our opinion, not the best suited for strawberries, being 

 a deep alluvial bottom soil, and too light, bat it was most convenient to 

 put them there. The summer of 1845, a light crop was produced, and 

 from the demand for young plants, the runners were allowed to grow out, 

 so that the paths between the rows were nearly covered. This prevented 

 us from working the ground in the fall of 1845, and, in my opinion, sacri- 

 ficed one third of the crop for the present year. We continued to take up 

 the young plants from the paths, and sometimes encroaching on the rows 

 until late in the spring of the present year, when it was considered too late 

 to cultivate the ground, only to clean the strawberries off, and let them go 

 into bearing. The weather, too, the last week of May, and first week of 

 June, was too damp to bring the strawberry to perfection, and yet, from this 

 piece of ground, a little over four hundred square yards, we picked one hun- 

 dred and twenty quarts of strawberries, a good many measuring from three to 

 four inches round. — Yours, Thomas Allen. Winchester Gardens, Va., 

 September 2G, 184G. 



We have ah-eady been indebted to Mr. Allen for some remarks on the 

 same subject, (Vol. VIII, p. 353) His experience is similar to many others 

 that we have before noticed, but it does not touch the question at issue, for 

 Mr. Allen admits he did not notice the character of the flowers oi the first 

 plant he had, whether perfect or imperfect; nor does he state whether his 

 beds which produced fruit were so or not. It is well known that plants 

 many yards distant may be fertilized and produce a good crop. Mr. Allen's 

 was by no means an average one, as he only produced one hundred and twenty 

 (quarts from four hundred square yards : this is only about twelve hundred 

 iniurts to the acre ; and Mr. Aspinwall and many other cultivators have pro- 



