312 JOURNAL OP THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



I say usually because the casual production of a few flowers 

 out of season is a very frequent occurrence amongst cultivated 

 plants : Pear trees, Horse-chestnuts, the common Lilac, Polyan- 

 thus Primroses, show frequent instances of the fact. But these 

 are purely accidental freaks of nature, and do not constitute a 

 permanent character. The expression "perpetual ' ' is applied only 

 to plants that yield regularly and certainly fresh crops of flowers 

 at distinct periods in the same year, such as perpetual Roses, 

 sweet Violets, and Alpine Strawberries. 



These last have long been the only really perpetual Straw- 

 berries known in our gardens. The main object of the following 

 paper is to introduce to the knowledge of the British public 

 varieties of the large-fruited type which originated recently on 

 the Continent or in America, and which are quite as perpetual 

 bearers of flowers and fruit as any strain of the old Alpine. The 

 introduction of these new sorts may mark as great an epoch in 

 modern Strawberry culture as did the propagation of the Alpine 

 Strawberry about one hundred years ago. 



Some Words on the History of Strawberry Culture. 



It does not appear from any document handed down to us 

 from antiquity that Strawberries were ever grown in gardens by 

 the ancients. They are everywhere mentioned as wild fruit 

 picked in woods. 



It was probably during the Middle Ages, or perhaps only at 

 the beginning of modern times, that the custom of introducing 

 Strawberries to the house garden became established, with the 

 result that new and improved strains originated owing to the 

 plants being more amply fed, and especially to the close and 

 constant observation to which the Strawberry plants were 

 subjected. 



Parkinson in 1629 enumerates several varieties of the common 

 or wood Strawberries along with the Virginian, and a certain 

 Bohemian Strawberry, with fruit of enormous size, the identifica- 

 tion of which seems to be a difficult problem to solve (Park., 

 " Par. Terr." p. 757). 



Round Paris the common red, the white, and a bush Straw- 

 berry, quite distinct from the bush Alpine, were the principal 

 sorts grown. At the time of Duchesne (who published in 1766 a 

 valuable " Histoire des Fraisiers "), the favourite strain for market 



