78 



SMALL FRUIT CULTTJEIST. 



Mark the plants, and keep the screen or bell-glass OTei 

 them for two or three days. When the seeds are ripe, 

 save and plant as I have already directed. 



There are a few Strawberry growers who place great 

 reliance upon their particular efforts in crossing, and when- 

 ever they produce a new variety it is always (if we believe 

 their assertions) a cross or hybrid between some two re- 

 markable varieties or species. But to show how exceed- 

 ingly difficult it is to know positively whether a seedling 

 is a cross between the two varieties upon which we have 

 experimented, or the result of some previous one, let us 

 suppose a case. 



For instance, we will take Hovcy's Seedling and fertil- 

 ize it with the Wilson, and from the seed of the former 

 raise a variety that shall resemble the latter more than it 

 does the Hovey — would this be positive proof that the 

 seedling was the result of our especial effort ? Not at all, 

 because similar varieties may be and are produced from 

 the Hovey without artificially fertilizing its flowers from 

 the Wilson or any similar variety. 



And further, the Wilson is probably a seedling of the 

 Hovey, and it possesses naturally the same inherent char- 

 acteristics which only require an opportunity, which seed- 

 lings afford, to show themselves. 



Direct efforts to improve are commendable, but the 

 causes of results are not always what are sujoposed, and 

 assertions are not to be implicitly relied upon. The in- 

 fluence that one variety has upon another by fertilizing 

 is generally supposed to affect the seeds only, but from 

 many experiments which I have made, I am quite certain 

 that it extends further. 



Every Strawberry growler is aware of the fact that 

 whenever a portion of the pistils are not fertilized, the 

 berries will be proportionately deformed. If there are no 

 f§eeds, then the receptacle, which we call the fruit, is abor- 

 tive. But if we are to suppose that the influence of the 



