HORTICULTURAL JOURNAL, 189 



possible that (ill these plants, embracing six varieties, were in some way or 

 other lost: but it is probable that such was the case? Is it not far more 

 probable, as they formed so attractive a feature at the March meeting, and 

 excited at the time such universal admiration, that they were not only re- 

 tained, but that they had increased in numbers : and that some of them were 

 used in making the " new bed of Hoveys Seedling" in the fall of 1851. For 

 we have the positive assurance of Mr. Meehan that there were no strawber- 

 ries at Springbrook when he took charge of it in 1852, except those con- 

 tained in the bed whence he took the plants with which his experiments were 

 conducted. But even admitting that this bed was made entirely from a 

 plantation which originally were undoubted Hovey's Seedling, it by no means 

 follows that the bed contained none but genuine plants of this kind. For 

 no bed, of any variety, can exist for two or three consecutive years in a 

 bearing state without having its purity more or less impaired by accidental 

 Seedlings. Many of the seed, that necessarily fall to the ground, vegetate 

 and produce plants — some of which will differ from their maternal parent in 

 sexual organization, time of inflorescence, period of maturity, and in various 

 other particulars. We have seen strawberry seed, that were planted in mid- 

 summer, produce plants that bore fruit the very next year. There is no 

 certainty, therefore that all the plants in a bed are of one kind, unless they 

 are all produced by runners of a single plant. In regard to the plants in 

 the bed at Springbrook, Mr. Meehan says in his letter to the Committee, — 

 ;i on their first flowering every one that flowered up to a certain date, coni'- 

 prising nearly the whole of them bore pistillate blossoms." * * * * * 

 "A week or so afterwards, he (Mr. Cope) being at Springbrook, we examined 

 the bed together, when little else but hermaphrodites were to be found." 

 The question here arises, — how can this difference in the sexual character 

 of the blossoms, at these two periods of time, separated by an interval of 

 " a week or so" be accounted for, if it were not owing to the presence of 

 more than one variety in the bed ? It is certainly not explained by the 

 adoption of Mr. Median's views; for if those views be correct, no such sex. 

 ual diversity ought to have existed, — all the blossoms should have been pistil- 

 late or all staminate, as all were subjected to the same cultivation. Again, 

 in allusion to the plant we received from him, he says in his letter to the 

 Committee : "It is a very weak plant as you iv ill perceive,," &c. Then ac- 

 cording to the doctrine developed in his communication to the Society, it 

 ought to have produced all pistillate blossoms; but it did not, they were all 

 either hermaphrodite or staminate. The remarks now made, we think are 

 sufficient to invalidate any inferences drawn from Mr. Median's experiments, 



