Retrospective Criticism. Ill 



This observation precedes Mr. Longworth's by ten years, and without 

 being known to him, is precisely coincident with his own remarks in every 

 particular. The facts detailed by Mr. Keen, are not readily disposed of 

 by a hypothesis, that too much manure produces an excess of runners, 

 and over nourishment, a repletion of the blossom. The recommendation 

 quoted from the Gardeners'' Chronicle to give a top dressing of fresh soil 

 instead of manure, is in opposition to all experience of what is needful in 

 the cultivation of strawberry plants, which rank among gross feeders. If 

 that suggestion were well founded, we might expect to see a bed which 

 had been rendered sterile from over nourishment, gradually become fertile, 

 as the ground should become exhausted by several years growth of the 

 plants in the same spot ; and that the fertility of the crop would improve 

 with the increased sterility of the soil. 



The London Horticultural Society's Catalogue has this remark : "In 

 all the sorts of hautbois, there exist both the Prolific, and also those 

 sterile plants commonly called males, which have long stamens.'''' (In 

 quoting this, (vol. 8, p. 262,) you have, by mistake written " long run- 

 ners,^'' and thus made it unintelligible.) Mr. Thompson adds ; "I be- 

 lieve there is no such thing as distinct plants of male and female hautbois. 

 Stamens and pislillums are to be found in either a perfect or an imperfect 

 stale in every individual flower. Imperfection generally takes place in the 

 pistillum, together with the receptacle." I suggest the inquiry whether 

 this does not solve the whole difficulty, between those who respectively 

 deny and assert the existence of male and female blossoms : — that while 

 in very strictness there may be no such flowers, as Mr. Thompson alledges, 

 yet from the reciprocal defect of pistils in one, and of stamens in the oth- 

 er, they became so nearly such, as to require the practice of Mr. Keens 

 and Mr. Longworth, to insure abundant crops of the large and fine kinds. 



I also suggest whether you have not placed too much stress on Mr. 

 Longworth's statement, that male and female plants will not produce a 

 plant of different character from the parent plant, were they to run for 

 fifty years. Mr. Long^worth is perhaps, too positive. Why may not a 

 plant, in diffusing its runners, produce both kinds ? I have supposed that 

 both kinds are so produced, at least my attempts to keep separate beds of 

 each, from which to transplant, has raised the presumption that such is 

 the case. I noticed that in the red mulberries in my garden, transplanted 

 from the forest, some are destitute of fruitful blossoms — another which 

 bears fruit has the two kinds on separate branches, — and these fruitful and 

 barren branches fresh from the same limb. May not the same thing take 

 place in the strawberry on the different runners from the same plant, or 

 what is much the same thing in effect — plants of which the flowers will be 

 reciprocally defective in stamens or pistils ! Why shall it be doubted that 

 Keen's seedling has produced both kinds, from one original, when it is 

 well ascertained, that Hovey's seedling from one original, had clearly 

 furnished perfect staminate plants, and others in which the stamens were 

 quite deficient. 



I can add a note on the transportation of strawberry plants which may 

 prove of value to you. When I purchased some plants of Hovey's seed- 

 ling in 1841, you informed me that it was difficult to keep plants alive for 

 ten days, and that it was very difficult to make them cross the Atlantic in 

 living order. The plants I purchased at Boston all perished, as did also 

 a parcel purchased by one of my friends who brought them by rail-road 



