448 THE STRAWBERRY. 



arises the necessity as well as apparent reality of the terms male 

 and female. 



In the production of new varieties, even in our wildlings, the seed- 

 ling plants, by means of highly enriched and stimulating soils, in 

 exhibiting the full and even enlarged development of one organ, the 

 other remaining imperfect, has given rise to the theory of strictly 

 barren (staminate) and fertile (pistillate) plants, which when once 

 formed, it is well known, seldom change. We coincide with Mr. 

 Downing, that " the organs are always present, though imperfectly 

 developed," and that when "deficient in pistils, (see Fig. 3,) they are 

 called male plants ; if deficient in stamens, (see Fig. 2,) female plants, 

 the terms are incorrect ;" yet these terms have become so commonly 

 accepted that we have for the better understanding continued their 

 use. 



This deficiency in the one or other organ arising from the original 

 state of cultivation, cannot be changed by placing the plant in dif- 

 ferent soil and preserving an even temperature. The runners will, 

 when grown in open air and usual cultivation, in nine hundred and 

 ninety -five instances out of every thousand, continue to maintain the 

 habit of the parent plant. A change from imperfect or perfect con- 

 struction in the flower of the strawberry cannot be depenided on from 

 a plant whose habit is once established, by means simply of varied 

 cultivation, although very high and exciting cultivation from enrich- 

 ing of animal manures, will often produce over-luxuriance of foliage, 

 with corresponding decrease of fruit stems ; hence the necessity of 

 forming beds or plantations of the two distinct fully developed plants, 

 and also the care requisite to prevent the staminate or male plants 

 from occupying too much ground, their supply of food derived from 

 the root being given to creation of new plants by means of runners 

 instead of fruit, as in the pistillate or female variety. 



With this understanding, therefore, that varieties are continu- 

 ally being produced, in which one organ is most prominently devel- 

 oped, and measurably to the destruction of the whole as a fruit- 

 bearing flower, it has become a requisite in planting to secure such 

 proportion of fruit-bearing or pistillate plants with the fructifying or 

 staminate varieties as to return the desired yield of fruit. The pis- 

 tillates, being regarded as the female, are counted valuable in newly 

 formed beds as of ten to one of staminates or males. 



Varieties however exist, like the Large Early Scarlet. Burr's Old 

 Seedling, and Longworth's Prolific, which have generally been classed 

 as staminate or male plants, and yet produce abundance of fruit. 

 These varieties possess both organs perfect, in proportion of about 

 three out of five flowers, and we have therefore classed them as her- 

 maphrodite. 



VARIETIES AND THEIR CLASSIFICATION. The varieties of this fruit 



