44 



SMALL FRUIT CULTURIST 



oeceous, L e., one plant bearing staminate flov\'ers and the 

 other pistillate ones. 



Considerable excitement was created in consequence, and 

 communications innumerable upon the subject were poured 

 into our horticultural journals, each writer claimhig to 

 have discovered something new in regard this, to them^ 

 wonderful phenomenon. 



One writer has for the past ten years or more, almost 

 annually, given the public a grand diagnosis of the case, 

 asserting that the pistillate varieties were the only ones to 

 be depended upon for a large crop, and that they were 

 naturally the most productive, while the facts are that there 

 are hundreds of perfect flowering kinds in cultivation that 

 are fully equal, if not superior, to the most productive pis- 

 tillates. That we have many very excellent varieties 

 among this latter class no one will deny, but that, as a 

 whole, they are any better than the others cannot be sub- 

 stantiated by facts. 



There is but one serious objection to the pistillate varie- 

 ties, and that is, two kinds must be grown to insure a crop 

 from one, or a perfect flowering variety must be grown 

 near a pistillate to fertilize its flowers, or no fruit will be 

 produced. This is imperatively necessary ; consequently 

 the close proximity of the two kinds has led to much con- 

 fusion, inasmuch as the runners of the two are very liable 

 to intermingle, unless great care is exercised to prevent it. 

 I have usu:illy found it more diflicult to get pure plants of 

 the pistillate varieties than of the others, and the excuse 

 given by the grower for the mixture was that the variety 

 grown for the purpose of fertilizing them had become in- 

 termingled. If this is the only reason, it is certainly a 

 very lame one, as there is no necessity for the plants be- 

 ing mixed, because setting the two kinds in adjacent beds 

 will answer every purpose. 



Bat without presuming to advance a theory on the sub- 

 iject, I would suggest whether it is not possible that varia- 



