94 Success with Small Fruits. 



The ovule in the ovarium to which the stigma leads represents, at 

 maturity, a seed, the actual fruit of the strawberry, and within each seed 

 Nature, by a subtle process of her own, wraps up some of the qualities of 

 the plant that produced the seed and some of the qualities also of the plant 

 from which came the pollen that impregnated the ovule. This seed, planted, 

 produces an entirely new variety, which, as a rule, exhibits character- 

 istics of both its parents, and traits, also, of its grandparents and remote 

 ancestors. The law of heredity is the same as in cattle or the human 

 race. Thus it may be seen that millions of new varieties can be very 

 easily obtained. A single plant-grower often raises many thousands to 

 which he never gives a name, by reason of the fact noted elsewhere 

 than in the fruit garden that most of these new strawberries in no 

 respect surpass or even equal their parents. The great majority, after 

 fruiting, which they do when two years old, are thrown away. A new 

 variety which is not so good as the old ones from which it came should 

 not be imposed upon the public. But they often are, sometimes deliber- 

 ately, but far more often for other reasons ; as, for instance, through the 

 enthusiasm of the possessor. It is his seedling ; therefore*, it is wonderful. 

 He pets it and gives it extra care, to which even very inferior varieties 

 generously respond. 



In the same old catalogue to which I have referred, Prince & Co. 

 announce : " We now offer a few of our superior new seedlings, with 

 descriptions, and there is not an acid or inferior one among them. 

 There is not one of them that is not superior to all the seedlings recently 

 introduced." Not one of these thirty-five " superior seedlings," to my 

 knowledge, is now in cultivation. They have disappeared in less than 

 fifteen years, and yet I have no doubt that on the grounds of Prince 

 & Co. they gave remarkable promise. 



Again, a fruit grower sends out second and third rate kinds from 

 defective knowledge. He has not judiciously compared his petted seed- 

 lings with the superb varieties already in existence. It is soon discovered 

 by general trial that the vaunted new-comers are not so good as the old ; 

 and so they also cease to be cultivated, leaving only a name. 



The editor of the Rural New Yorker has adopted a course which 

 would be very useful indeed to the public, if it could be carried out in 

 the various fruit-growing centers of the country. He obtains a few 

 plants of every new variety offered for sale, and tests them side by side, 

 under precisely the same conditions, reporting the results in his paper. 

 Such records of experience are worth any amount of theory, or the half- 

 truths of those who are acquainted with but few varieties. I tested fifty 



