Pomological Gossip. 401 



at Cincinnati and elsewhere that the greater proportion — I 

 should think at least nineteen hoentieths [!] — sent out for this 

 kind are spurious." 



Now will Mr. Pardee have us believe that such men as Mr. 

 Ernst, Messrs. Kelly & Co., Messrs. Heaver, and others, have 

 made the mistakes he speaks of? sending only vne genu- 

 ine plant out of a dozen, and in another case niyieteen twen- 

 tieths of the whole spurious ? We should, rather than believe 

 this, think the whole batch were misnomers, promiscuous 

 seedlings, taken up to fill orders hap-hazard. In the whole 

 history of the introduction of seedling strawberries in this 

 country, in which dozens of new sorts have been sent out, 

 we do not recollect of an error ; and here, with four varieties, 

 one twelfth in one case, jive twelfths in another, nineteen 

 twentieths in another, and in a " greater number of cases none 

 but spurious ones " (we quote Mr. Pardee's own words) "have 

 been sent away"! With such evidence as this, it is useless 

 to attempt any description or identification of the sorts, and 

 very unwise to charge all cultivators who do not acknowledge 

 their superiority with not having the true kinds. It is ex- 

 tremely doubtful what the true kinds are. 



But we cannot believe that such gross mistakes have been 

 made ; Mr. Pardee must be in error. Our Longworth^s 

 Prolific is the same as Mr. Pardee's ; it is not a pistillate. 

 Schneike's Pistillate is right ; nobody could mistake it. 

 McAvoy's Superior and McAvoy's No. 1 are similar, as Ave 

 before stated. Possibly here may be an error ; yet the de- 

 scription by the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society of the 

 former agrees with ours ; with one exception it could not be 

 more correctly described ; that exception is the color ; their 

 report calls it " deep brilliant crimson," while we call it a 

 " dark dingy red." In confirmation of this, we see Mr. W. R. 

 Prince, in a letter in Dr. Warder's Revieic, while speaking 

 of McAvoy's Superior, says "its only deficiency as a market 

 fruit being its dark color. ^^ 



We have seen no person who has cultivated McAvoy's 

 Superior (and we have seen gentlemen from various parts of 



VOL. XIX.— NO. IX. 51 



