Breeding New Varieties of Strawberries 



By S . H . Warren 



MARSHALL P. WILDER once 

 said that "He who produces a 

 new fruit or flower is a pubHc 

 benefactor," but I shall have to make 

 some exceptions to this saying of our 

 noted friend and horticulturist. When 

 I think of some of the new strawberries 

 that have been disseminated during the 

 last fifty years, I doubt if all of them 

 have been a benefit to anyone; although, 

 perhaps where they originated they may 

 have been a success. I am well aware 

 that some of the varieties which have 

 done poorly with me may have done 

 well with others. 



Most new varieties are started from 

 the seed. A single berry with two hun- 

 dred seeds will produce, if all live, two 

 hundred new varieties. Most of these 

 may be multiplied by runner production, 

 others by crown separation, as the latter 

 do not make runners, but grow in stools. 



The artist, in preparing his paint for a 

 certain color, puts together a little of one 

 shade and a little of some other, then 

 mixes them; each addition changes the 

 color. So, in like manner, the Great Ar- 

 tist employs the insects to mix together 

 the pollen from the blossoms of the vari- 

 ous qualities of the strawberry and to de- 

 posit it in the receptacles or seed tubes of 

 other blossoms. The mixing of each ad- 

 dition changes the quality of the product 

 from the seed. 



Watch the busy bee as he flies from 

 blossom to blossom, till he has visited 

 hundreds of flowers. Some of these 

 plants produce fruit that is very acid, 

 other that is very sweet, still other of a 

 medium quality, and so on through all 

 the various flavors. From all of these he 

 has made a collection and a deposit of 

 this mixture. The deposit may not have 

 been intentional on the part of the bee, 

 but it has been done. The next bee or 

 butterfly may visit other varieties and 

 some of the same, each adding to the 

 variety already collected; so it is not 

 strange that each seed should produce a 

 product peculiar to itself. This is the 

 result of promiscuous fertilization. But 

 to procure the best results a plant of your 

 ideal pistillate, also one of your ideal 

 staminate, varieties should be separated 

 from all other varieties, so that when in 

 bloom there shall be no other variety to 

 cross-fertilize but the one you desire. If 

 these two plants set near each other they 

 will fertilize themselves, but if not, the 

 pollen should be applied with a camel's 

 hair brush. 



When the berries are perfectly ripe 

 they may be picked and the seed washed 

 out of the pulp in water. By rubbing 

 the berries between your hands the seed 

 will settle to the bottom. 



Drain off the water and pulp and dry 

 the seed, then bottle and cork it so no in- 



sect can get at the seed to destroy it, or 

 plant at once. We plant the seed in 

 February so as to get stronger plants be- 

 fore being allowed to fruit. If planted 

 in July it will bear fruit the following 

 June, but the plants will not be as strong 

 as if planted in February. 



In preparing the soil for the seed u.se 

 good, rich soil from the garden and mix 

 one-third sand with it. I use a box three 

 and one-half inches deep; put in three 

 inches of the prepared earth; press it with 

 a board so as to leave a smooth surface, 

 then sow the seed evenly over the sur- 

 face, press with the board, cover with 

 earth one-sixteenth of an inch and press 

 again, then water and cover with a wet 

 cotton cloth. 



The seed germinates in about three 

 weeks; when the young plants show the 

 fourth leaf they should be transplanted 

 into other boxes or open ground. All 

 runners should be cut off as fast as thev 



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The Entire Editions of Both the 



January and February Numbers of 



The Strawberry 



ARE EXHAUSTED 



This annnouncement is made because 

 of the flood of requests that is pour- 

 ing in upon this office for copies 

 of the issues named. 



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appear to get the best results. If you 

 have done your part well, you may hope 

 to get some good seedlings, but often we 

 are disappointed. You may be sure of 

 getting >iirw varieties, but better varieties 

 are not so certain. 



For the last several years I have been 

 growing new varieties from seed. Some 

 of the first seedlings I grew were grown 

 from Jewells crossed with Belmonts, or 

 as Belmonts stood next to Jewells, I 

 called them a Jewell and Belmont cross. 

 I had a nice bed of Jewells, but the fruit 

 stood one day too long on the vines and, 

 it being a wet time, many of the berries 

 began to decay. These berries were put 

 into separate baskets as we picked them, 

 and dumped near the packing shed. 

 Most of them were very large. Later in 

 the season I gathered a lot of the seed 

 out of the pile, for there were forty quarts 

 emptied there, sowed it in boxes and 

 transplanted it to the open field. The 

 result was that out of two hundred and 

 fifty plants that lived I selected thirty 

 that were better than many others I had 

 ?%it 81 



paid high prices for. Yes, I will say bet- 

 ter than the average of the standard vari" 

 eties that are grown in Massachusetts. 



I have taken great pleasure in growing 

 these seedlings, watching them from the 

 time the seed first breaks ground till it 

 gives us its first fruit. To get the best 

 results we must have strong, healthy 

 plants to start with. Be careful to sa\e 

 the seed from strong, healthy stock, for 

 the same rule holds as good in plant life 

 as in animal life. 



Formerly I have said that all new vari- 

 eties were produced from seed; but since 

 the introduction of the Pan-American I 

 no longer make that assertion, for that or- 

 iginated from a sport from the Bismarck 

 by bud variation. The Pan-American was 

 first discovered six or seven years ago last 

 September. The originator was walking 

 over his Bismarck bed in New York state 

 and found the parent plant with sixteen 

 young runner plants all producing either 

 green or ripe fruit and blossoms. From 

 these seventeen plants this new variety 

 has been propagated so that nearly every 

 plant produces fruit out of the regular 

 season of the common varieties. I have 

 grown them three years and they are a 

 wonder to all who see them in the fall. 



Most people who have tried them 

 complain they do not make enough new 

 plants; but if grown on black, moist soil, 

 they will produce plants enough. Where 

 mine do the best is on a reclaimed swamp 

 (black muck land). If you have any var- 

 iety which is a poor plant maker use this 

 kind of land to propagate the plants, and 

 there will be no trouble in getting all the 

 plants needed. Many of the older straw- 

 berry growers remember the Jewell 

 strawberry introduced by P. M. Auger of 

 Connecticut. They were a poor plant 

 maker on dry soil. The first hundred 

 plants I bought (for which I paid ten 

 dollars) of the Jewell were the largest, 

 best-looking plants I ever saw. These I 

 set in rows next to Belmonts which cov- 

 ered the ground too thick, although they 

 were set four feet apart; but the Jewells 

 didn't average three new plants to the 

 parent plant. Late in the fall I took up 

 some of the very small plants (tip-enders) 

 that I feared would not live over winter, 

 and set them in a cold frame under glass 

 and wintered them there. The follow- 

 ing spring I set these tip-enders on my 

 reclaimed swamp, and the plants covered 

 the ground as thick as a mat. Since then 

 1 am not afraid to set small plants (par- 

 ticularly of those varieties that are poor 

 plant makers), for the tip-enders of these 

 varieties will produce more runner plants 

 than the large overgrown plants of that 

 same variety. 



What is there about a small-end plant 

 that is so objectionable with most peo- 

 ple.^ You say, "it is too small." But so 



