130 CULTURE OF THi£ STRAWBERRY. 



to cultivate sterile plants, as has been recommended by some 

 individuals, when varieties unusually 2^roductive, and of larffe 

 size, can be planted out for that purpose." He here, of 

 course, refers to his own seedlings. 



Mr. Downing describes the Old Hudson as **a fruit with a 

 neck." Our Hudson is the reverse of a necked fruit, and I 

 have never seen a single berry of this kind with a neck ; and 

 I am positive that ours is the same variety that has been cul- 

 tivated under this name in New Jersey, and in the vicinity of 

 Philadelphia, more extensively for market, for the last fifty 

 years, than all others united. The Hudson, or Hudson Bay, 

 is described in English works as a necked fruit. They 

 obtained it from New York many years since, and do not 

 consider it a first rate fruit. I incline to the opinion, that 

 the true Hudson was not sent them, or has been lost, and a 

 new variety substituted. It has been of late years imported 

 from England by New York gardeners, and by them consid- 

 ered the true Hudson. The genuine Hudson is not now to 

 be found in Boston, and probably not in New York. It is 

 wholly defective in the male organs, and has been thrown by 

 as unproductive. It is a large and finely-flavored fruit, and, 

 where properly impregnated, a great bearer. 



Mr. Downing, in a letter to me, suggests that our Hudson 

 has probably lost its neck by impregnation with other varie- 

 ties. I hold that the character of new seedlinofs is chanofed, 

 where the mother plant was impregnated by a different vari- 

 ety, but that the shape or color of the fruit is not, where im- 

 pregnated by a variety diff"ering in shape and color from the 

 plant impregnated. I wish to see the experiment made, 

 whether the size of the fruit of the pistillate plant is in- 

 creased or lessened by the staminate plant used for impreg- 

 nation. An experienced market gardener assures me that it 

 is increased. 



I have this moment received a letter from Col. Carr, an 

 old and experienced horticulturist of Philadelphia. He 



