ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED FRUITS 279 



The strawberry. The United States, Hke Europe from Lap- 

 land to the Mediterranean, was well stocked with wild straw- 

 berries. A good start had been made in an early day toward 

 developing garden varieties from this source, and the writer has 

 eaten freely in boyhood of such varieties. 



Before final results were at hand, however, and before the 

 best use had been made of this native stock, ^ a new species from 

 Chile had been introduced into England, and from there to this 

 countr)', where it has become the parent of all commercial varie- 

 ties, wholly displacing the races developed from the native stock. 

 The Chilean species extends into our own western mountains, but 

 fails to succeed when brought directly from there to the East. 



The strawberry is widely scattered over the earth, a fact due 

 partly to its cosmopolitan character and partly to the facility 

 with which birds scatter the seeds, in which respect this fruit 

 is equaled by few and surpassed by none. 



Notwithstanding all this, the strawberry is one of the newest 

 of additions to cultivated plants, dating in all probability not back 

 of the fifteenth centur}^ It is difficult to realize how so luscious 

 a fruit should be so long neglected, except upon the assumption 

 that in its present form it has not long existed. 



The raspberry. Europe supports many varieties of Rubns 

 idceus, both red and white, but, like the grape, they all proved 

 unsuited to American conditions, and, as before, recourse was 

 had to the wild. Naturally the early efforts were directed to the 

 red berries, following the European type, and later to the black 

 caps, which upon acquaintance immediately took the lead. 



The real cultivation of native American raspberries dates, 

 according to Bailey,^ not earlier than i860, when L. F. Allen 

 of New York sent out two red varieties, Allen's Red Prolific 

 and Allen's Antwerp, which were "merely accidental varieties of 



^ It is an open question whether the wild red strawberry of the eastern 

 United States is identical with the Fragaria vesca of Europe. The difference is 

 evidently slight, but enough to lead some botanists to give it a separate name, — 

 sometimes Fran^aria 7'irginiatia and again Fragaria americana. 



* " Evolution of our Native Fruits," p. 286. 



