g^d PLAIX AXD PLEASANT TALK 



berries we noticed in a former article, Mr. Downing, and 

 several other eminent cultivators adopt the contraiy opin- 

 ion, that, with care, large crops of large fruit may be obtained 

 from perfect-flowering plants. This question is yet, then, 

 to be settled. 



It is ardently to be hoped that, hereafter, we shall have 

 less premature and positive assertion, upon unripe observa- 

 tions, than has characterized the early stages of this con- 

 troversy. We will take the liberty of following Mr. Hovey 

 in his magazine, between the years 1842 and 1846, not for 

 any pleasure that we have in the singular vicissitudes of opm- 

 ion chronicled there, but because an eminent cultivator, 

 writer, and editor of, hitherto, the only horticultural maga- 

 zine in our country, has such influence and authority 'in 

 forming the morals and customs of the kingdom of Horti- 

 culture, that every free subject of this beautiful realm is 

 interested to have its chiefs men of such accuracy that it 

 will not be dangerous to take their statements. 



In 1842, Mr. Long worth communicated an article on the 

 fertile and sterile characters of several varieties of straw- 

 berries for Mr. Hovey's magazine, which Mr. II. for sub- 

 ject-matter, indorsed. In the November number, Mr. Coit 

 substantially advocated the sentiments of Mr. L. ; and the 

 editor, remarking upon Mr. Coit's article, recognized dis- 

 tiuctly the existence of male and female plants. 



He (Mr. H.) says that, of four kinds mentioned by Mr. 

 C. as unfruitful, two were so '"'•from the want of staminate 

 or male plants;'''' and " the cause of the barrenness is thus 

 easily explained.'''' And he goes on to explain divers cases 

 upon this hypothesis ; and still more resolutely he says, that 

 all wild strawberries have not perfect flowers ; " in a dozen 

 or two plants which Ave examined last spring some were per- 

 fect (the italics are ours) having both stamens and pistils ; 

 others^ only pistils, and others, only stamens; thus showing 

 that the defect, mentioned hy Mr. Longworth, exists in the 

 original species.'''' He closes by H^ging cultivators to set 



