CULTURE OF THE STRAWBERRl' 129 



that his mind was again mystified on the subject. How are 

 the mere workies to gain information, when the editor of a 

 Horticultural Magazine, and a nurseryman, who undertakes 

 to enlighten others, has not, in eleven years, ascertained the 

 character of his own seedling ? I am the less surprised at 

 this, and acquit Mr. Hovey of blame, as Mr. Downing, in a 

 recent letter, assures me, that last season, he raised a fine 

 crop of Hovey's seedlings, on a bed far separated from all 

 others ; and for a still stronger reason — that even the London 

 Horticultural Society holds the same doctrine. But the ques- 

 tion is now under investigation, and lio-ht is thrown on it 

 yearly by cultivators, and even the London Horticultural So- 

 ciety will soon acknowledge their error ; but not until Mr. 

 HovEY has satisfied his own mind, when he will doubtless 

 draw public attention to it. Yet Mr. Hovey, in his August 

 No. of the present year, states, a person had cultivated an 

 acre of his seedlings, where they were mixed with staminate 

 plants, and raised two thousand quarts, and that his new 

 seedling is valuable for impregnating his old one. Here is a 

 tacit admission, that his old seedling is defective in the male 

 organs. The yield was not a large one. Mr. Jackson raised 

 at the rate of five thousand quarts to the acre, near Cincin- 

 nati, as he informed the public in a late publication. Mr 

 Downing, I am positive, had not Hovey's seedling unmixed 

 with others. 



To keep varieties separate, is next to an impossibility, and 

 the more so, as new ones are often produced in the bed from 

 chance seed. I was absent from home two months this 

 summer, and left it in charge with my gardener to watch the 

 beds, and keep down runners. On my return, I found the 

 pistillate beds had become mixed, and the staminate Iowa 

 had run on the adjoining pistillate beds, on each side, a dis- 

 tance of nine feet. But though Mr. Hovev appears to admit 

 that his old seedling requires staminate plants near, on the 

 same page, he remarks, *' It is time and labor thrown awav 



