110 Retrospective Criticism. 



other kind. If by the term accidentally, we are to infer that the bed has 

 since become sterile without the presence of other plants, the statement of 

 that fact would have been very material and satisfactoi-y. 



The question is one of much moment to gardeners, and it will be advis- 

 able for them to adhere to Mr. Longworth's practice, until the abstract 

 botanical question shall be settled by the experts in that science Those 

 who have not this skill may incline, from the evidence furnished, to beheve 

 in the separate existence of the male and female flowers, when their sep- 

 arate existence is not only aflirmed by eminent gardeners besides Mr. 

 Longworth, but the difference between them is minutely described by 

 him, and accurate drawings of them given in this Magazine for July, 

 1842, from specimens culled by a botanist whose skill is eminent. 



Mr. Longworth has somewhere said, that he first learned from a Ger- 

 man who kept a market garden, the necessity of planting a portion of 

 male plants with the bearing plants. The person he alludes to, is Mrs. 

 Arbogast, who came from the vicinity of Philadelphia to Cincinnati about 

 25 years ago, and was the first person, and for many years the only per- 

 son, who furnished that market with strawberries in good quantity. Mr. 

 Longworth thus learning the necessity of paying due attention to the 

 flowers in all those kinds which yield large fruit, has pursued the sub- 

 ject with zeal, and sought to spread this knowledge among cultivators. 



The course of culture proposed by him, may very properly be called 

 Mr. Longworth's theory, for he has more actively and clearly than others, 

 taught the rules by which to make good crops. But it is a mistake to al- 

 lege as he does, that English Gardeners seem to have known nothing of 

 it. The fact of .sterility from this cause and the cure for it, were certainly 

 known to Mr. Keen, the producer of Keen's seedling, as early as 1809, 

 as the following extract from his directions for cultivating the strawberry 

 will show : — 



" The hauibois, I have always found to thrive best in a light soil ; and 

 it must be well supplied with dung, for excess of manure does not drive 

 it into leaf like the pine strawberry. In planting the beds, each row must 

 be two feet apart, and from plant to plant in the rows, must be eighteen 

 inches, leaving the alleys between the beds, three feet wide. There are 

 many different seeds of hautbois : one has the male and the female organs 

 in the same blossom, and bears very freely ; but that, which I most ap- 

 prove, is the one which has the male organs in one blossom, and the fe- 

 male in another : this bears fruit of the finest color, and of far superior 

 flavor. In selecting these plants, care must be taken that there are not 

 too many of the male plants among them ; for as these bear no fruit, 

 they are apt to make more runners than the females. I consider one male 

 to ten females the proper proportion for an abundant crop. I learned the 

 necessity of mixing the male plants with the others in 1809. I had, be- 

 fore that period, selected female plants only for my beds, and was entirely 

 disappointed in my Lopes of a crop. In that year, suspecting my error, 

 I obtained some male blossoms, which I placed in a bottle on a bed of fe- 

 male hautbois. In a few days I perceived the fruit near the bottle to 

 swell : on this observation, I procured more male blossoms, and in like 

 manner, placed them in bottles, in diflerent parts of the beds, removing the 

 bottles to fresh places every morning, and by this means obtained a mod- 

 erate crop, where I had gathered no fruit the preceding year." 



