



CHAPTER XIII. 



WHAT SHALL WE PLANT? VARIETIES, THEIR CHARACTER AND 



ADAPTATION TO SOILS. 



I HAVE in my library an admirable little treatise written by the late R. 

 G. Pardee and printed twenty-five years ago. While the greater part 

 of what he says, relating to the requirements of the plant and its culture, 

 is substantially correct, his somewhat extended list of varieties is almost 

 wholly obsolete. With the exception of Hovey's Seedling, scarcely one 

 can be found in a modern catalogue. Even carefully prepared lists, made 

 at a much later date, contain the names of but few kinds now seen in the 

 garden or market. I have before me the catalogue of Prince & Co., 

 published in 1865, and out of their list of 169 varieties but three are now 

 in general cultivation, and the great majority are utterly unknown. Thus 

 it would seem that a catalogue soon becomes historical, and that the 

 kinds most heralded to-day may exist only in name but a few years hence. 

 The reasons can readily be given. The convex heart of every strawberry 

 blossom will be found to consist of pistils, and usually of stamens ranged 

 around them. When both stamens and pistils are found in the same 

 blossom, as is the case with most varieties, it is called a perfect flower, 

 or staminate. In rare instances, strawberry flowers are found which 

 possess stamens without pistils, and these are called male blossoms ; far 

 more often varieties exist producing pistils only, and they are named 

 pistillate kinds. Either of the last two if left alone would be barren ; the 

 male flowers are always so, but the pistillate or female flowers, if fertilized 

 with pollen from perfect-flowered plants, produce fruit This fertilizing is 

 effected by the agency of the wind, or by insects seeking honey. 



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