Success with Small Fruits

by Edward Payson Roe

CHAPTER XIII

WHAT SHALL WE PLANT?—VARIETIES, THEIR CHARACTER AND ADAPTATION TO SOILS

I have in my library an admirable little treatise written by the late R. G. Pardee, and printed twenty-five years ago. While the greater part of what he says, relating to the requirements of the plant and its culture, is substantially correct, his somewhat extended list of varieties is almost wholly obsolete. With the exception of Hovey's Seedling, scarcely one can be found in a modern catalogue. Even carefully prepared lists, made at a much later date, contain the names of but few kinds now seen in the garden or market. I have before me the catalogue of Prince & Co., published in 1865, and out of their list of 169 varieties but three are now in general cultivation, and the great majority are utterly unknown. Thus it would seem that a catalogue soon becomes historical, and that the kinds most heralded to-day may exist only in name but a few hence. The reasons can readily be given. The convex heart of every strawberry blossom will be found to consist of pistils, and usually of stamens ranged around them. When both stamens and pistils are found in the same blossom, as is the case with most varieties, it is called a perfect flower, or staminate. In rare instances, strawberry flowers are found which possess stamens without pistils, and these are called male blossoms; far more often varieties exist producing pistils only, and they are named pistillate kinds. Either of the last two if left alone would be barren; the male flowers are always so, but the pistillate or female flowers, if fertilized with pollen from perfect-flowered plants, produce fruit. This fertilizing is effected by the agency of the wind, or by insects seeking honey.

The ovule in the ovarium to which the stigma leads represents, at maturity, a seed—the actual fruit of the strawberry—and within each seed Nature, by a subtile process of her own, wraps up some of the qualities of the plant that produced the seed, and some of the qualities also of the plant from which came the pollen that impregnated the ovule. This seed, planted, produces an entirely new variety, which, as a rule, exhibits characteristics of both its parents, and traits, also, of its grandparents and remote ancestors. The law of heredity is the same as in cattle or the human race. Thus it may be seen that millions of new varieties can be very easily obtained. A single plant-grower often raises many thousands to which he never gives a name, by reason of the fact—noted elsewhere than in the fruit garden—that most of these new strawberries in no respect surpass or even equal their parents. The great majority, after fruiting—which they do when two years old—are thrown away. A new variety which is not so good as the old ones from which it came should not be imposed upon the public. But they often are, sometimes deliberately, but far more often for other reasons; as, for instance, through the enthusiasm of the possessor. It is his seedling; therefore it is wonderful. He pets it and gives it extra care, to which even very interior varieties generously respond.

In the same old catalogue to which I have referred Prince & Co. announce: "We now offer a few of our superior new seedlings, with descriptions, and there is not an acid or inferior one among them. There is not one of them that is not superior to all the seedlings recently introduced." Not one of these thirty-five "superior seedlings," to my knowledge, is now in cultivation. They have disappeared in less than fifteen years; and yet I have no doubt that on the grounds of Prince & Co. they gave remarkable promise.

Again, a fruit grower sends out second and third-rate kinds from defective knowledge. He has not judiciously compared his petted seedlings with the superb varieties already in existence. It is soon discovered by general trial that the vaunted new-comers are not so good as the old; and so they also cease to be cultivated, leaving only a name.

The editor of the "Rural New Yorker" has adopted a course which would be very useful indeed to the public, if it could be carried out in the various fruit-growing centres of the country. He obtains a few plants of every new variety offered for sale, and tests them side by side, under precisely the same conditions, reporting the results in his paper. Such records of experience are worth any amount of theory, or the half-truths of those who are acquainted with but few vanities. I tested fifty kinds last year in one specimen-bed. The plants were treated precisely alike, and permitted to mature all their fruit, I being well content to let eight or ten bushels go to waste in order to see just what each variety could do. From such trial-beds the comparative merits of each kind can be seen at a glance. Highly praised new-comers, which are said to supersede everything, must show what they are and can do beside the old standard varieties that won their laurels years ago. I thus learn that but few can endure the test, and occasionally I find an old kind sent out with a new name. When visiting fruit farms in New Jersey last summer, I was urged to visit a small place on which was growing a wonderful new berry. The moment I saw the fruit and foliage, I recognized the Col. Cheney, forced into unusual luxuriance by very favorable conditions. Other experienced growers, whose attention I called to the distinguishing marks of this variety, agreed with me at once; but the proprietor, who probably had never seen the Cheney before and did not know where the plants came from, thought it was a remarkable new variety, and as such it might have been honestly sent out. Trial-beds at once detect the old kinds with new names, and thus may save the public from a vast deal of imposition.

Such beds would also be of very great service in suggesting the varieties that can be grown with profit in certain localities. While the behavior of different kinds differs greatly in varying soils and latitudes, there is no such arbitrary mystery in the matter as many imagine. I am satisfied that the sorts which did best in my trial-bed give the best promise of success wherever the soil and climate are similar. In contrast, let a trial-bed be made on a light soil in Delaware or Virginia, and 100 varieties be planted. Many that are justly favorites in our locality would there shrivel and burn, proving valueless; but those that did thrive and produce well, exhibiting a power to endure a Southern sun, and to flourish in sand, should be the choice for all that region. To the far South and North, and in the extremes of the East and West, trial-beds would give still varying results; but such results would apply to the soils and climate of the region if proper culture were given. A horse can be mismanaged on a Kentucky stock-farm, and there are those who would have ill luck with strawberries in the Garden of Eden—they are so skilful and persist in doing the wrong thing. It would well remunerate large planters to maintain trial-beds of all the small fruits, and their neighbors could afford to pay well for the privilege of visiting them and learning the kinds adapted to their locality.

I think it may be laid down as a general truth, that those kinds which do well on a light soil in one locality tend to do well on such soils in all localities. The same principle applies to those requiring heavy land. There will be exceptions, and but few of those containing foreign blood will thrive in the far South.

In the brief limits of this chapter I shall merely offer suggestions and the results of some experience, premising that I give but one man's opinion, and that all have a right to differ from me. At the close of this volume may be found more accurate descriptions of the varieties that I have thought worth naming.