A New Strawberry of a New Type—The Patagonia 
The strawberries are an exceedingly variable genus of plants, mostly 
natives of Europe, North America and the West Coast of South America. 
Some scientific botanists divide the genus into one hundred and thirty 
species, while others make only three or four species at most. Take your 
choice in this matter. It only indicates what all are slowly learning, that 
horticulture may be as accurate a science as is the classificatory botany 
of the schools. 
The strawberries of the present time are about where the potato was 
forty years ago; many varieties are imperfect in blossom, others adapted 
only to certain soils and special conditions of culture, many are subject to 
various foliage diseases, some produce one crop and then disappear, not 
being able to produce an abundance of fruit and sufficient runners for re- 
newal, others produce too many "nubbins" or imperfect berries, others too 
man) r runners. 
Several species may have contributed towards the production of the 
common garden strawberry, but it is generally admitted that all our best 
strawberries have descended wholly or in part from one of the Chilian straw- 
berries (Fragraria Chiloensis). No known wild strawberry compares with 
the modern hybrids in their general combination of good qualities even with 
their many defects. 
Some twenty-five years ago the work of improving the strawberry was 
commenced on my grounds ; all the popular varieties of that time and also 
the wild strawberries of New England, Alaska, Norway and the far better 
ones of the California seashore and mountains were used. Many promising- 
new ones were produced, but none which were thought sufficiently improved 
to replace the best then known and the work of improving the strawberry 
was discontinued until five years ago, when one of my Chilian collectors 
(from whom I have received during the past five years more than three 
thousand species of new wild Argentine, Chilian and Patagonian plants), 
sent seeds of the wild strawberries from both the lofty Cordilleran moun- 
tains between Chile and the Argentine Republic and from the Coast regions 
of Southern South America. Among these new wild strawberries were some 
with unusual qualities, which promised to be of untold value when amal- 
gamated with the best European and American strains. 
The best combination in this work with new material resulted from 
the crosses of the best of the new Chilian with Brandywine, Longworth's 
