THE CANADIAN IIOUTICULTUIUST. G7 



plants from an old bed can frequently be got from some kind neiglibor 

 for nothing, they may in the end prove very expensive plants, and the 

 persons using them will be very apt to amuse themselves practicing 

 false economy. 



To attempt to enumerate all the varieties of strawberries that have 

 been originated, named and thought worthy of cultivation in Europe 

 and America since the introduction of Hovey's Seedling, to say nothing 

 of the tens of thousands that have been raised and rejected after a year 

 or two as unworthy of even a name, would fill a whole number of the 

 Horticulturist. Downing alone, in his late edition of " Fruit and 

 Fruit Trees of America," describes some four hundred varieties. As 

 tbe names of all the leading varieties in cultivation at the present day 

 can be found in most nurserymen's catalogues, I will not name them, 

 but will merely remark that strawberries, like many other of our best 

 cultivated fruits, seem to arrive at a certain degree of perfection, health, 

 vigor and productiveness, and then to degenerate to such a degree as 

 to become comparatively worthless in a few years; therefore a constant 

 renewing by cross-bred seedlings seems necessary to keep up the 

 health, vigor and fruitfulness of the species. 



The progress that has been made in flavor and productiveness the 

 last three hundred years is very difficult to ascertain, but the difference 

 in the size of the fruit and value of the seed is very remarkable. In 

 1593 Thomas Hyll writes : " Strawberries be much eaten at all men's 

 tables in the summer with wine and sugar, and they will grow in 

 gardens until the bigness of a mulberry." The English mulberry is 

 about three-quarters of an inch in diameter, and some of our newest 

 and best varieties of strawberries will grow from one inch and a half 

 to two inches and a half in diameter. There can be no doubt therefore 

 that we have made great improvement in the size of the fruit in three 

 hundred years. 



But if, as an ojd writer says in 1578, straw l)eiries were "in savour 

 (or fragrance) very pleasant," and we should judge alone from the 

 fragrance of that very popular variety of late years, the Wilson's 

 Albany, most persons would incline to the belief that we had retro- 

 graded on tliis point. We are thankful, however, that many of the 

 newer varieties have a delicious fragrance as well as taste. 



In regard to seed, the Alpine strawberry is said to have been 

 introduced into France and England about the year 1764, and Mr. 



