CHAPTER IV. 



STRAWBERRIES THE FIVE SPECIES AND THEIR HISTORY. 



THE conscientious Diedrich Knickerbocker, that venerated historian 

 from whom all good citizens of New York obtain the first impres- 

 sions of their ancestry, felt that he had no right to chronicle the 

 vicissitudes of Manhattan Island until he had first accounted for the 

 universe of which it is a part. Equally with the important bit of land 

 named, the strawberry belongs to the existing cosmos, and might be 

 traced back to "old chaos." I hasten to re-assure the dismayed reader. 

 I shall not presume to follow one who could illumine his page with 

 genius, and whose extensive learning enabled him to account for the 

 universe, not merely in one but in half a dozen ways. 



It is the tendency of the present age to ask what is, not what has 

 been or shall be. And yet, on the part of some, as they deliberately 

 enjoy a saucer of strawberries and cream, it is a pleasure that we 

 prolong for obvious reasons, a languid curiosity may arise as to the 

 origin and history of so delicious a fruit. I suppose Mr. Darwin would 

 say, "it was evolved." But some specimens between our lips suggest 

 that a Geneva watch could put itself together quite as readily. At the 

 same time, it must be said that our " rude forefathers" did not eat 

 Monarch or Charles Downing strawberries. In few fruits, probably, have 

 there been such vast changes or improvements as in this. Therefore, 

 I shall answer briefly and as well as I can, in view of the meager data 



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