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 
