550 THE STRAWBERRY, ETC. 



merit of our hermaphrodites. It is this perversion of nature, by the 

 destruction of the male plants which she had furnished, that has 

 rendered it necessary in the humid climate of England to have recourse 

 to artificial culture by hand ; and this attempt to improve on nature, 

 while in reality waging a most unnatural war against her, has been the 

 long continued cause of the miserable crops produced in England, where 

 the flowers of many varieties are reduced by hand to four on each 

 plant, and the plants have also to be specially nursed to insure the 

 development of even this small product. The wanton destruction of 

 the male plants, so necessary to efficient impregnation, is precisely 

 similar to a man's cutting off both his natural arms in order that he 

 might find use for artificial ones. The annihilation of the males of 

 their own native hautbois is not only strenuously urged in Europe, but 

 it is declared by their most intelligent (?) cultivators that it is to the 

 existence of these " sterile" (males are not sterile) plants that the dis- 

 credit and abandonment of its general culture is to be attributed, in 

 consequence, as they say, of some people believing (as the Americans 

 do) that it is necessary to combine the two sexual varieties to insure a 

 good crop ; and that by adopting this course the " sterile plants" (males) 

 overrun the females, and thus the beds become nearly barren. I would 

 suggest the adoption of our American practice of planting the sexes in" 

 distinct beds. I desire also to impress on European cultivators that it 

 is the same unnatural destruction of the males that has reduced the 

 crops of the hautbois, which were formerly abundant in a state of 

 nature : and I urge the adoption of American science (as to sexuality) 

 in their treatment, by which they can restore its former fertility. Thus 

 by reversing their practice they will revolutionize the results. 



The additional normal fact that the four great families — the F. 

 elatior (hautbois) and F. vesca (wood), the F. grandijlora (pine), and F. 

 Virginiana (scarlet) — never blend with each other by any sexual 



UNION WHATEVER, AND CANNOT CONSEQUENTLY BE FERTILIZED EXCEPT 

 BY THEIR OWN STAMINATES, RENDERS THE PRESERVATION OF BOTH 

 SEXES INDISPENSABLE, WHERE THEY NORMALLY EXIST ON DISTINCT 

 PLANTS. 



As a proof of this fundamental fact there has not, during the two 

 hundred and fifty years which have elapsed since the first interchange 

 of European and American strawberries, been produced a single hybrid 

 between the species of the two hemispheres, or between the three 

 species which are natives of Europe, or between the species which are 

 natives of South with those of Nurth America. The six Xorth American 

 species blend sexually with each other, and the two South American 

 varieties blend sexually with each other, but these two sections can never 

 be sexually blended, nor can any American species ever be blended with 

 those of Europe. 



This normal fact of sexual aversion, which forms the 



SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF ALL STRAWBERRY CULTURE, appeals not to be 



