THE STRAWBERRY QUESTION. 
371 
caused the several varieties to be engraved, and an 
account of them published by John S. Skinner, 
Esq., in the American Farmer of that year, in which 
he makes the following bold, though patriotic asser¬ 
tion :—“ I venture, without any hesitation, to assert 
that, the individual or individuals who succeed in 
first landing in the United States a pair of the sheep 
hereafter described, would not only be compensated 
in a pecuniary sense, equal to their most sanguine 
expectations, but would render a greater service to 
our country than if they introduced ail the mineral 
wealth of Peru.” Notwithstanding the opinion, so 
positively advanced, it does not appear that an im¬ 
portation of any of these animals has ever taken 
place, except an occasional individual for the use 
of a menagerie or some strolling show. 
The importance of some movement to introduce 
the Alpaca into the United States, both at the 
North as well as the South, is manifest, from the 
fact that our climate, particularly in mountainous 
districts, as along the entire range of the Allegha- 
nies, will be well adapted to their natures, and that 
they may also prove a source of national wealth. 
The cloth manufactured from their wool is now 
well known, and is in general use. At a late meet¬ 
ing of the British Association for the Advancement 
of Science, Mr. W. Dawson stated that six years 
before, he brought before that Society a subject that 
received its countenance in an especial manner; 
which was to induce manufacturers to exercise their 
ingenuity to discover means for consuming a wool 
of a silken texture in a manufactured state, and 
also to prepare the landed gentry and farmers to 
naturalize the animal called the alpaca, a species of 
.sheep, eating that which the cow, the horse, the 
common sheep, &c., reject. He added, “ The 
manufacturers have succeeded beyond my most 
sanguine expectation, and the naturalization also. 
The former has created a national wealth of 
,£3,000,000 to £5,000,000 per annum ; the latter 
is progressing rapidly. I have proved that these 
mountain rangers can be domiciled in our own 
country, though brought from beyond the Andes 
mountains, in Peru. I have tried the experiment 
in my own lands on the west coast of Ireland, in 
the wildest districts of the county of Kerry, and 
already a company is on the tapis to bring over 
10,000 of these animals for the national good.” 
He said that the race was nearly extinct in Peru, 
and therefore it was desirable to bring it over to the 
British Isles; their wool approaching silk, and their 
flesh being improved by English air and pasture. 
The Queen and Prince Albert were wearing royal 
jobes from the wool of some bred in Windsor Park. 
And he gave it as his opinion that “ in ten years 
these animals will add £20,000,000 per annum to the 
national wealth .” 
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THE STRAWBERRY QUESTION. 
As much has been written on the Strawberry- 
Question, I shall express my views by setting forth, 
certain positions, from which I shall make deduc¬ 
tions and amplifications, sustaining all by facts and 
arguments. 
Postulates. —1st.—A. normal strawberry blossom,’ 
be it of what character it may, never changes, and 
all the runners from each parent plant being com¬ 
ponent and identical .parts of the original, serve 
only to perpetuate its primitive character. 
2d.—Normal blossoms of the strawberry are of 
three forms ; first, perfect , having fertile stamens 
and pistils; second, staminate , having sterile or 
abortive pistils; third, pistillate , devoid of perfect 
stamens. 
3d.—Plants of the perfect character sometimes 
produce a few of their earliest and latest blossoms 
so weak as to be without stamens, or with very im¬ 
perfect ones, -which is caused by weakness or ex¬ 
haustion, in the same way as numerous other plants 
produce occasional imperfect flowers, and as ever is 
the case with some double-flowering plants, which 
produce single flowers from the same cause; but 
this in no wise affects the general character of the 
plant, which is always maintained in all vigorous 
blossoms. 
4th.—Staminate and pistillate varieties (abso¬ 
lutely so) never vary under any circumstances 
whatever; and those who advocate such change 
might with equal justice assert that male and female 
animals transpose their sexual characters. 
5th.—The flowers of two only of the normal 
forms produce fruit, the perfect and the pistillate; 
the staminate is invariably barren; the pistillate is 
also barren, except when attended by plants of one 
of the other normal forms. 
Deductions. The fertility of any variety cannot 
be positively tested and decided upon, when other 
varieties that may affect the result, exist in 
proximity. 
1st.—“ Hovey’s Seedling,” whatever assertions 
may have been made to the contrary by various 
persons, without proper scrutiny, was, in the origi¬ 
nal , is now, and ever will be, a “ distinctly and 
perfectly pistillate plant;” and consequently no 
Hovey’s Seedling has ever produced, or ever will 
produce fruit, without the aid of some variety pos¬ 
sessing stamens. > 
2d.—No one of the plants called Hovey’s Seed¬ 
ling, described otherwise than pistillate by Mr. 
Downing and others (unless they erred as to their 
character), was a genuine Hovey’s Seedling , but 
they were misled by confusing other varieties with 
it, in some cases the whole bed being of a different 
kind, and in other cases the beds must have been 
composed of Hovey’s Seedling and some other va¬ 
riety, mixed. Not one of the transpositions of 
Hovey’s Seedling that Mr. D. speaks of, took 
place, but he was misled by the circumstances to 
which I have alluded, or by others. 
The error of Mr. Hovey in supposing his seed¬ 
ling a perfect plant, capable of producing fruit of 
itself, arose from the proximity of some staminate 
variety; and the errors of Mr. Downing, both on 
this and various other points at issue, have arisen 
from the juxtaposition referred to, one variety fer¬ 
tilizing the other, and also from errors iu the 
