k 
Early Strawberries — Lovett’s Early. 
For a long time fruit growers, both ama- 
teur and professional, have been longing 
and looking for a really good, reliable, early 
strawberry. Many have appeared, each of 
which have in 
their turn proved 
defective in one 
or more proper- 
ties; compelling 
the market grow- 
er to fall back up- 
on the old, sour, 
much abused, yet 
reliable and pro- 
fitable Wilson. 
With the advent 
of the Duncan 
in the seventies 
v e all for a time 
felt that the de- 
sideratum had at 
last been produc 
ed; but our hopes 
were soon sub- 
111 e r g e d i n — 
strawberry juice. 
It proved so soft 
as to be disgust- 
ing to everybody 
except love sick 
dudes. The Cres- 
cent came ntarer 
supplying the de- 
mands of grow- 
ers, 'being lacking 
chiefly in size and 
flavor, and pos- 
sessing too much 
of the dude char- 
acter — sol tness — 
to please the mat- 
ter-of-fact mark- 
et grower; with 
the disadvantage of being a pistillate sort. 
We did not have long to wait, however, be- 
fore we were given that gem of the South, 
purported to be a gem of first water — name- 
ly Crystal City. And a veritable gem it 
proved to be in earliness and quality; but 
alas! like diamonds, but few specimens 
indeed ai e ever large. May King, although 
Lovett’s Early Strawberry. Fig. 28-!. 
by no means so early as it? name indicates, 
is with a few growers an almost ideal early 
strawberry. Being a seedling of the Cres- 
cent it inherits the sturdy, enduring plant 
of its parent and is handsome, quite firm, 
of fair size and quality. Were we not in 
candor obliged to add that in many, in fact 
most instances, it is decidedly unproductive, 
it would leave 
but little to be de- 
sired. The same 
remarks will ap- 
ply with equal 
force to the beau- 
tiful and deli- 
cious Bid well 
w r ith emphasis 
upon unproduc- 
tiveness. As the 
strawberry is 
never grown as 
an ornam e n t a 1 
plant this defect 
is of course fatal 
to both. In the 
Monm outli we 
have size, firm- 
ness, beauty, qual- 
ity and produc- 
tiveness, but as 
fate would have 
it, the plant has 
developed a fee- 
bleness of growth 
no 1 apparent 
until recently, re- 
quiring rich, deep 
soil in order to se- 
cure satisfactory 
results with it. 
Lovett’s Early, 
an original and 
correct illustra- 
tion of which we 
present to our 
readers this 
month originated 
near the home of the famous Charles 
Downing, Kentucky, etc., produced by 
Downer, in Kentucky, some five years ago. 
