THE CULTIVATION OF THE MAYFLOWER 



By Frederick V. Coville 



Author of "Taming thk Wild Blueberry" 



Published zvith the permission of the Secretary of Agriculture 



THE fruit of the mayflower, or 

 trailing arbutus, is reputed to be 

 of rare occurrence. Certainly it is 

 rarely seen; it has hidden itself for cen- 

 turies among the leaves and moss. To 

 be found, it must be sought lovingly, if 

 not indeed reverently, upon the knees. 

 Furthermore, it must be sought at the 

 right time, and that time is when wild 

 strawberries are ripe. 



It is a curious and remarkable fact that 

 a plant so universally known and so well 

 loved for the beauty, charm, and fra- 

 grance of its flowers should have been un- 

 known as to the character of its fruit. 

 Before the year 191 3 none of our bota- 

 nies adequately and correctly described 

 it. The mayflower has not a dry pod, 

 but a white-fleshed edible fruit as juicy 

 as a strawberry, though of smaller size. 



The Japanese have surpassed us in this 

 matter, for they class their species of 

 trailing arbutus as one of their edible 

 wild fruits. 



The secret of the mayflower fruit was 

 known to one other also — that greatest 

 of hunters, the ant. It is she who seeks 

 the juicy pulp and bears the seed to new 

 gardens on the bare, dull green soil of 

 moist and shady hummocks. 



The fruit of the mayflower is not in 

 reality rare. I have found hundreds of 

 them in a woodland pasture in New 

 Hampshire in a single forenoon. (See 

 the illustration by J. AI. Shull, page 506.) 



In an earlier article* were described 

 certain experiments in the culture of that 

 delicious but hitherto undomesticated 

 fruit, the blueberry. It was found that this 

 plant luxuriates only in soils so acid as 

 to bring starvation to the ordinary plants 

 of agriculture, and that it bears upon its 



* Taming the Wild Blueberry. Nationai, 

 Geographic Magazine, February, igii. 



roots a beneficial fungus which appears 

 to nourish the plant in much the same 

 way as the nitrogen-fixing bacteria in the 

 root tubercles of clover nourish the clover 

 plant. In the first trial plantation, in the 

 pine barrens of New Jersey, blueberries 

 are now produced of the size and color 

 of Concord grapes. 



A microscopical examination of the 

 roots of the mayflower showed that it 

 possessed the same sort of mycorhizal 

 fungus as the blueberry, and as the two 

 plants inhabit the same kinds of soil in 

 their wild state and are similar in their 

 geographic distribution, it was believed 

 that the mayflower might respond to the 

 same system of culture that had been 

 successfully worked out for the blue- 

 berry. It was while searching for seeds 

 with which to experiment that the re- 

 markable character of the mayflower 

 fruit was discovered. 



In the most successful trials the seeds 

 were sown while fresh in a mixture of 

 two parts finely sifted upland peat, from 

 laurel thickets, and one part of clean 

 sand. The seeds sprout in about four 

 weeks ; and the plants, though exceed- 

 ingly small at first, grow steadily under 

 successive repottings, until at the age of 

 14 months they make rosettes about 5 

 inches in diameter, with flowering buds 

 already formed. After exposure to cold 

 weather during the winter they bloom 

 freely. The flowers have the same fra- 

 grance and range of color as the wild ones, 

 but larger size, some of them reaching 

 seven-eighths of an inch in diameter ; and 

 the leaves are not so disfigured by insects 

 as are those of the wild plants. 



In their second year the plants reach 

 a diameter of 12 inches and sometimes 

 bear over 30 clusters of flowers. 



It is useless to try the culture of the 



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