50 SEXUAL CHARACTER. 



that one plant will drive every good fruit-bearing plant 

 out of the bed. 



This is one reason why so many strawberry beds 

 fail after the first bearing season ; so we repeat in the 

 strongest manner, get pure plants difficult, we know 

 and on no account permit any two kinds to run 

 together; place boards on edge between them, or in 

 some way protect them from each other. 



After this episode on a very practical point, we may 

 be permitted to say, there are strawberry plants we 

 call staminate, because they exhibit to the eye very 

 distinct stamens. Our plate will illustrate this. An- 

 other kind we call pistillate, because the naked eye 

 can discover developed in the blossom only the pistils. 

 Most of our intelligent horticulturists assure us, that 

 the best staminates will only produce a part of a fair 

 crop of fruit, while the pistillate varieties will produce 

 no perfect fruit at all, without being impregnated by 

 some staminates in the vicinity ; but when thus im- 

 pregnated, the pistillates produce an abundance of the 

 finest fruit. 



The interesting and accurate experiment of Mr. 

 Huntsman, in the Appendix, C, sets this matter in a 

 very clear light. 



Some of the staminates of recent introduction, like 

 Walker's Seedling and Longworth's Prolific, are so 

 very desirable, that every cultivator should have one 



