VINDICATION OF THE DUKE OF KENT’S STRAWBERRY.-ETC. 24'7 
the male flowers and runners of others. Hence the 
important operations of pruning, ringing, cutting 
©If large roots, and other practices, for improving 
fruits, and throwing trees into a bearing state. At 
first sight, these practices do not appear to be 
copied from nature; but man, though an improving 
animal, is still in a state of nature, and all his prac¬ 
tices, in every stage of civilisation, are as natural to‘ 
him, as those of the other animals are to them. 
Cottages and palaces are as much natural objects as 
the nests of birds, or the burrows of quadrupeds ; 
and all the laws and institutions by which social 
man is guided in his morals and politics, are no 
more artificial than the instinct which congregates 
sheep and cattle into flocks and herds, and guides 
them in their choice of pasturage and shelter. 
To form new varieties of vegetables, as well as 
of flowers, and of use ful plants of every description, 
it is necessary to take advantage of their sexual; 
differences, and to operate in a manner analogous to 
crossing the breed in animals. This practice is but 
an imitation of what lakes place in nature by the 
agency of bees and other insects, and of the wind; 
all the difference is, that man operates with a par¬ 
ticular end in view, and selects individuals possess¬ 
ing the particular properties which he wishes to 
perpetuate or improve. 
The preservation of vegetables for future use is 
effected by destroying or rendering dormant the 
principle of life, and by warding off, as far as prac¬ 
ticable, the progress of chemical decomposition. 
Hence the herbs or roots, or fruits of some vege¬ 
tables, are dried; others are placed beyond the 
reach of the active principles of vegetation, as 
seeds, cuttings, scions, roots, and fruits; and some 
are, in addition, excluded from the air, or placed in 
very low temperatures. 
The whole of gardening, as an art of culture, is 
but a varied development of one or more of the 
fore-named practices, all founded in nature, and for 
the most part rationally and satisfactorily explai li¬ 
ed on chemical and physiological principles. 
Hence the great necessity of the study of botany to 
the cultivator. L. T. Talbot. 
VINDICATION OF THE DUKE OF KENT’S 
STRAWBERRY. 
In the Boston Magazine of Horticulture, the 
editor censures Mr. Thomas for recommending the I 
Duke of Kent Strawberry for cultivation, pronounc-: 
jng it “ quite worthless,” and seals its fate by 
saying the London Horticultural Society deem it of j 
no value. When that learned body, and the Eng- , 
1'ish gardeners shall have progressed so far as to! 
have discovered that there are two separate and 
distinct plants in the strawberry, the one defec-' 
live in the male, and the other in the i'emaie organs, 
to a greater or less extent, and the difference in 
their size and appearance so great that a blind man 
can distinguish the blossoms at the distance of 
twenty feet, I shall pay proper respect to their 
opinions. I have cultivated the Duke of Kent’s 
several years, to impregnate Mr. Hovey’s seedling, 
and deem it next in value to that valuable straw¬ 
berry. It is the only plant I have ever met with 
that comes near meeting Mr. Downing’s fancy of a 
perfect plant. (I here,of course, except the alpines.) i 
it has four merits to recommend it. It is an early 
fruit; a good bearer, of fair quality; and what 
forms its chief quality, and gives it a preference 
over all other staminates as an impregnator, is, 
that it can, by its leaf and growth, be at all times 
distinguished from Hovey’s seedling, and other 
valuable pistillate plants. It has this peculiarity 
of blossom, whilst a large portion of them are per¬ 
fect in both organs, some will be found on the 
same stem wholly defective in the male organs, 
and depending on their neighbors for impregnation. 
There are many famous English staminates, and 
Hovey’s Pine and Buist’s seedling among them, 
valuable as impregnators; but in my opinion, as 
impregnators only. The objection to them is, that 
they will not average one-third of a crop, and are 
not so distinct in appearance as the Duke of Kent’s. 
The Roses Phoenix is one of the best bearers 
among them, but I have never yet seen it bear one- 
third of a crop of perfect fruit. I this season gave 
the famous English varieties, the Swainstone, 
Downton, Emperor, Myatt’s Pine, and some others, 
a fair trial; not one-half of their blossoms bore 
perfect fruit. Even our scientific English gardeners 
now distinguish the difference between the stami- 
nate and pistillate blossom, and the barren character 
of the former, and their indispensable necessity for 
impregnating Hovey’s, and other pistillates; hut 
gravely assure us all blossoms were perfect in 
both organs in England — that it is a change 
effected by our climate, and that they would at once 
change their character if sent back to England. I 
trust Mr. Hovey will, by experiments, this season, 
ascertain the character of his old seedling, and that 
his experiments will be sanctioned by the report of 
the committee of the Boston Horticultural Society, 
and other cities in future be supplied with this 
delicious fruit, as abundantly and as cheap as we 
are in Cincinnati, and a theory heretofore denounced 
by the learned, because it was first practised by an 
illiterate market woman, received with favor. My 
only fear is, that the poor woman may have her 
merit detracted from, by their showing, that 
although Linnaeus scouted at it, the doctrine was 
fully tested and believed in by some of his disciples; 
that even Kean discovered it, in one variety, and 
made it known to the London Horticultural Society. 
Cincinnati* June 19, I846‘. N. Longworth. 
To make Water cool for Summer. —The fol¬ 
lowing is a .simple mode of rendering water almost as 
cohl as ice :—Let the jar, pitcher, or vessel, used for 
water, be surrounded with one or more folds of 
coarse cotton, and be kept constantly wet. The 
evaporation of the water will carry off' the heat 
from the inside, and reduce it to a freezing point. 
In India, and other tropical legions, where ice can¬ 
not be procured, this is common. 
What is Blight ?—It is a sun-stroke, or a 
frost-bite, a plague of insects, or of fungi, a 
paralysis of the root, or a gust of bad air ; it is wet¬ 
ness, it is dryness, it is heat, it is cold, it is plethora, 
it is starvation ; in short, it is anything that destroys 
or disfigures foliage. Can a definition be more 
perfect? We should expunge the word as a sub¬ 
stantive term from our language, and only use it in 
its adjective sense.— Dr. Lindley. 
