JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 41 
character of the plant, and will aid our correspondent in iden¬ 
tifying liia favourite.] 
REVIEW OF BOOK. 
Success with Small Fruits. By Edward P. Roe. London : 
Seeley, Jackson, & Halliday, 54, Fleet Street. 
This beautiful American volume, which is dedicated to Mr. 
Charles Downing, has been on our table for some time. It ig 
American in all its aspects—style, tone, paper, and illustrations, 
the latter being numerous and many of them of great artistic 
merit. The author is a free and florid writer ; indeed we shall 
not be surprised to find that matter-of-fact individuals who seek 
for instruction wholly, and cannot endure a grain of chafE among 
the wheat, will deem him garrulous. The diversified style is, 
however, designedly adopted. “ Since,” says the author in the 
preface, “the fruit garden and farm do not develope in a straight¬ 
forward matter-of-fact way, why should I write about them after 
the formal and terse fashion of a manual or scientific treatise ? 
The most productive varieties of fruit, blossom and have some 
foliage which may not be very beautiful any more than the depar¬ 
tures from practical prose in this book are interesting ; but, as a 
leafless plant or bush laden with fruit would appear gaunt and 
naked, so to the w r riter a book about them without any attempt 
at foliage and flowers would seem unnatural. The modern chro¬ 
nicler has transformed history into a fascinating story. Even 
science is now taught through the charms of fiction. Shall this 
department of knowledge, so generally useful, be left only to 
technical prose? Why should we not have a class of books as 
practical as the gardens, fields, and crops concerning which they 
are written, and at the same time having much of the light, shade, 
colour, and life of the out-of-door world ? I merely claim that I 
have made an attempt in the right direction, but, like an unskil¬ 
ful artist, may have so confused my lights, shades, and mixed my 
colours so badly, that my pictures resemble a Strawberry bed in 
which the weeds have the better of the fruit.” 
We cannot refrain from saying that there are seme literary 
weeds in the work, yet it contains much matter that is both inter¬ 
esting and instructive. All the small fruits that are so extensively 
cultivated in America are referred to more or less copiously, 
special attention apparently being given to Strawberries. The 
chapter on a southern Strawberry farm includes Negro life and 
dialogue and a dozen engravings, the whole process of strawberry - 
ing during the season being fully delineated. Black overseers are 
on one farm that is particularly noticed preferred to the whites, 
as they “ drive on the work with tireless energy.” 
As this is Strawberry time an extract from the volume will be 
instructive to some readers and will show the character of the 
work. It is in reference to the origin of the present race of Straw¬ 
berries. Marvellous is the advance that has been made, and the 
truth of the adage is apparent in the improvement of this fruit, 
that “ great results from little causes spring.” 
The innumerable varieties of Strawberries that are now in existence 
appear, either in their character or origin, to belong to five great and 
quite distinct species. The first, and for a long time the only one of 
which we have any record, is the Fragaria vesca, or the Alpine 
Strawberry. It is one of the most widely spread fruits of the world, 
for it grows, and for centuries has grown, wild throughout Northern 
and Central Europe and Asia, following the mountains far to the 
south ; and on this continent, from time immemorial, the Indian 
children have gathered it from the Northern Atlantic to the Pacific. 
In England this species exhibits some variation from the Alpine 
type, and was called by our ancestors the Wood Strawberry. The 
chief difference between the two is in the form of the fruit, the Wood 
varieties being round and the Alpine conical. They are also sub¬ 
divided into white and red, annual and monthly varieties, and those 
that produce no runners, which are known to-day as Bush Alpines. 
In connection with the white and red Wood and Alpine Strawberries 
we find in 1023 the name of the Hautbois or Haarbeer Strawberry, 
the Fragaria elatior of the botanists. This second species, a native 
of Germany, resembles the Alpine in some respects, but is a larger 
and stockier plant. Like the Fragaria vesca, its fruitstalks are 
erect and longer than the leaves, but the latter are larger than the 
foliage of the Alpine, and are covered with short hairs both on the 
upper and under surface, which give them a rough appearance. As 
far as I can learn this species still further resembled the Alpines in 
possessing little capability of improvement and variation. Even at 
this late day the various named kinds are said to differ from each 
other but slightly. There is a very marked contrast, however, be¬ 
tween the fruit of the Hautbois and Alpine species, for the former 
has a peculiar musky flavour which has never found much favour in 
this country. It is, therefore, a comparatively rare fruit in our 
gardens, nor do we find much said of it in the past. 
There is scarcely any record of progress until after the introduction 
of the two great American species. It is true that in 1660 a fruit¬ 
grower at MontreuiJ, France, is “ said to have produced a new variety 
from the seed of the Wood Strawberry,” which was called “ the 
Cappron,” and afterwards the “ Fressant.” It was named as a dis¬ 
tinct variety a hundred years later, but it may be doubted whether 
it differed greatly from its parent. Be this as it may, it is said to be 
the first improved variety of which there is any record. 
Early in the seventeenth century intercourse with this continent 
led to the introduction of the most valuable species in existence, the 
Virginian Strawberry (Fragaria virginiana), which grows wild from 
the Arctic regions to Florida, and westward to the Rocky Moun¬ 
tains. It is first named in the catalogue of Jean Robin, botanist to 
Louis XIII., in 1624. During the first century of its career in Eng¬ 
land it was not appreciated, but as its wonderful capacity for varia¬ 
tion and improvement—in which it formed so marked a contrast to 
the Wood Strawberry—was discovered, it began to receive the atten¬ 
tion it deserved. English gardeners learned the fact, of which we 
are making so much to-day, that by simply sowing its seeds new 
and possibly better varieties could be produced. From that time 
and forward the tendency has increased to originate, name, and send 
out innumerable seedlings, the majority of which soon pass into 
oblivion, while a few survive and become popular, usually in pro¬ 
portion to their merit. 
The Fragaria virginiana, therefore, the common wild Strawberry 
that is found in all parts of North America east of the Rocky Moun¬ 
tains, is the parent of nine-tenths of the varieties grown in our 
gardens; and its improved descendants furnish nearly all of the 
Strawberries of our markets, while the Fragaria vesca, or the Alpine 
species of Europe, is substantially the same to-day as it was a thou¬ 
sand years ago. 
As in the Alpine species there are two distinct strains—the Alpine 
of the continentand the Wood Strawberry of England—so in the wild 
Virginian species there are two branches of the family—the eastern 
and the western. The differences are so marked that some writers 
have asserted that there are two species ; but we have the authority 
of Prof. Gray for saying that the Western, or Fragaria Illinmnsis, is 
perhaps a distinct species, and he classifies it as only a very marked 
variety. 
There are but two more species of the Strawberry genus. Of the 
first of these, the Fragaria indica, or Indian Strawberry, there is little 
to say. It is a native of Northern India, and differs so much from the 
other species that it was formerly named as a distinct genus. It has 
yellow flowers, and is a showy house plant, especially for window 
baskets, but the fruit is dry and tasteless. It is said by Prof. Gray 
to have escaped cultivation and become wild in some localities of this 
country. 
Fragaria chilensis is the best species or subdivision that we now 
have to consider. Like the F. virginiana it is a native of the American 
continent, and yet we have learnt to associate it almost wholly with 
Europe. It grows wild on the Pacific slope from Oregon to Chili, 
creeping higher and higher up the mountains as its habitat ap¬ 
proaches the equator. “ It is a large, robust species, with very firm 
thick leaflets, soft and silky on the under side.” The flowers are 
larger than in the other species ; the fruit, also, in its native condi¬ 
tion, averages much larger, stands erect instead of hanging, ripens 
late, is rose-coloured, firm and sweet in flesh, and does not require as 
much heat to develope its saccharine constituents; but it lacks the 
peculiar sprightliness and aroma of the Virginian Strawberry. It 
has become, however, the favourite stock of the European gardeners, 
and seems better adapted to transatlantic climate and soil than to 
ours. The first mention of the Fragaria chilensis, or South American 
Strawberry, says Mr. Fuller, “ is by M. Frezier, who in 1716, in his 
journey to the South Sea, found it at the foot of the Cordillera 
Mountains near Quito, and carried it home to Marseilles, France.” At 
that time it was called the Chili Strawberry, and the Spaniards said 
that they brought it from Mexico. 
From Mr. W. Collett Sandars, an English antiquarian, I learn that 
seven plants were shipped from Chili and were kept alive during the 
voyage by water which M. Frezier saved from his allowance, much 
limited owing to a shortness of supply. He gave two of the plants 
to M. de Jessieu, “ who cultivated them with fair success in the Royal 
gardens.” In 1727 the Chili Strawberry was introduced to England, 
but not being understood it did not win much favour. 
Mr. Fuller further states—“ We do not learn from any of the old 
French works that new varieties were raised from the Chili Stravy- 
berry for at least fifty years after its introduction.” Duchesne, in 
1766, says that “ Miller considered its cultivation abandoned in 
England on account of its sterility. The importations from other 
portions of South America appear to have met with better success ; 
and, early in the present century new varieties of the F. chilensis, as 
well as of the virginiana, became quite abundant in England and on 
the Continent.” 
If we may judge from the characteristics of the varieties imported 
to this country of late years the South American species has taken 
the lead decidedly abroad, and has become the parent stock from 
which foreign culturists, in the main, are seeking to develope the 
ideal Strawberry. But in all its transformations, and after all the 
attempts to infuse into it the sturdier life of the Virginian Straw¬ 
berry, it still remembers its birthplace, and falters and often dies in the 
severe cold of our winters, or, what is still worse, the heat and drouth 
of our summers. As a species it requires the high and careful 
culture that they are able and willing to give it in Europe. The 
