PERPETUAL STRAWBERRIES. 



825 



addition to the already pretty long list of the perpetual largo 

 Strawberries. 



M. Edouard Lefort, the reputed raiser of some good varieties, 

 has already entered the lists with 'Jeanne d'Arc,' a seedling 

 from 'St. Joseph,' which, although decidedly different from the 

 mother plant in its rounder, greener leaves and brighter scarlet 

 fruit, does not show such an advance as to deserve a lengthy 

 description. Fresh achievements in perpetual Strawberries are 

 to be expected yearly now, and some respite should be given to 

 the raisers in order to let them thoroughly test their new pro- 

 ductions before bringing them forward. Similar kinds which 

 follow too soon upon the appearance of a sensational novelty are 

 very apt to turn out to be nothing more than misnomers and 

 masqueraded duplicates of the original article. So every able 

 judge will pronounce the so-called ' Eubicunda, la Constante 

 feconde ' to be with regard to ' St. Joseph.' 



It is quite otherwise with ' Oregon ' and another French sort, 

 ' Louis Gautier.' Both are distinct, and, although far from 

 perfect, deserve to be noticed and experimented with. 



1 Oregon ' was distributed as far back as 1891 or 1895 by 

 Mr. Crawford, of Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, as a Perpetual 

 Strawberry, and it really deserves the name to a great extent. 

 I have seen it recently bearing a fair crop of large, bright scarlet, 

 sharply angular berries, and showing fresh trusses of bloom 

 which promise another crop of fruit before winter. My opinion 

 is that it is heavily handicapped in the contest with ' St. Joseph ' 

 by the fact of its being a weak grower and a scanty bearer of 

 runners ; but it is after all a fairly perpetual sort. 



1 Louis Gautier,' on the other hand, is a vigorous and luxuriant 

 grower, with a dark, thick, hairy foliage : the trusses are very 

 strong, growing well ouf of the leaves, with large coxcombed 

 fruit as pale as the original Chili Strawberry. It gives, accord- 

 ing to my experience of it, a heavy crop in spring of ill-coloured, 

 large white-fleshed, quite solid, juicy fruit, but bears only few 

 and far between summer or autumn trusses of bloom. These, 

 when produced at all, mostly spring from the young plants rooted 

 in spring from the earlier runners. A fresh flower-stem from 

 even a young plant which has already bloomed in spring is, to 

 my knowledge, a rarity. 



It is certain that new varieties of perpetual large-fruited 



