FLORA 



AND SYLVA. 



Vol. II. No. 17.] 



AUGUST, 190 4. 



[Monthly. 



DEGRADED STRAWBERRIES. 

 The lovers of this fruit — and they are 

 many — have had full opportunity this 

 season of tasting the sour poor thing as 

 it is known in our markets. Doctors for- 

 bid it to their patients and many who 

 venture to eat are ill-affected. The late 

 Sir Henry Thompson used to say to me 

 that of all foods known to mortals the 

 worst to produce lithic acid in the blood 

 was the Strawberry. He of course, like 

 most others, judged from the market 

 kinds, and the question is whether these 

 ill-effects are essential to the fruit or due 

 to our choosing bad kinds. The town 

 public are at the mercy of the markets 

 and their ways; the fruits that look and 

 carry well are those that are always 

 grown — never mind the flavour, the 

 stomach-ache, or saturating the blood 

 with acids. Soft fruits that carry well 

 taste ill. Is it right to encourage this state 

 of things ? The markets will have their 

 own ways, but is it well for those who are 

 happy in having fertile gardens of their 

 own to follow the lead of the markets ? 

 We may grow better varieties than those 

 commonly grown. The best Strawberry 

 ever raised is Myatt's British Queen, and 

 there were other good kinds raised from 

 that, such as Keen s Seedling — kinds far 



better than the Royal Sovereign and 

 others now in use. Even the neglected 

 Viscountess was better in flavour than 

 some of those on the market now. The 

 Alpine Strawberry is, in its wild state, a 

 wholesome fruit, as it is in flavour far 

 better than those grown for use, small 

 though it be. Those who have stayed in 

 the south of Europe know the baskets of 

 sweet wild Strawberries gathered on the 

 hillsides by the peasants and brought 

 daily into the markets in large quantities 

 during summer, or they may themselves 

 have plucked the ripe red clusters hang- 

 ing from the old walls of country lanes. 

 These fruits are the best that can be had 

 for flavour, and are sweet without the 

 sugar which alone makes the market 

 Strawberry palatable, manufactured su- 

 gar being also injurious. The neglected 

 Hautbbis — another wild Strawberry — 

 is also far finer in flavour than most 

 cultivated Strawberries. 



Where from our conditions we are 

 not able to grow the best kinds such as 

 The Queen, why not raise Strawberries 

 from seed ? I have always felt that the 

 fine flavour of The Queen came, not 

 from the Chilian or the Virginian Straw- 

 berry, but in part from the Hautbbis. 

 That would be an excellent kind to use 



