Mr. J. M. Merrick, Jr., recommends this same isolation of the pistillate plant under glass.
It should be distinctly understood that while several perfect-flowering plants may be placed under the sash with a pistillate, the pollen of only one of these can fertilize a pistil. Mixing pollen from different kinds will never produce in a seedling the qualities of three or more varieties. The seedling is the product of two kinds only. Inclosing the plants in a frame ensures that all the pistils are fertilized by one or the other of the perfect-flowered varieties that are so fine as to promise a better combination of excellence than yet exists. The appearance of the seedling will probably show which of the kinds formed the combination, but often there would be uncertainty on this point, I think.
Mr. E. W. Durand, who sent out the Black Defiance, Great American, Beauty, Pioneer, and several others, claims that the "true method is to propagate by pairs, each parent possessing certain distinctive features." "My course," he writes, in a paper read before the N. J. State Horticultural Society, "is to select my pistillates after years of trial, subject them to severe tests, and place alongside of each such a staminate as I think will harmonize and produce a certain desired effect. Another pistillate plant, of the same variety, is placed far away from the last, with a different staminate, and so on, till I exhaust the staminates or perfect-flowering kinds that I wish to test with that pistillate variety. Of late years, I have used but two or three kinds of pistillate plants, and they are a combination of excellence. I never show them to my most intimate friends, and the public know nothing about them. The years of trial and experiment necessary to produce such plants must necessarily discourage a beginner; yet it is the only course that will lead to success."
I think that Mr. Durand takes too gloomy a view of the subject, and I can see no reason why any one starting with such pistillates as the Golden Defiance, Champion, and others, may not originate a variety superior to any now in existence. At the same time, I must caution against over-sanguine hopes. Mr. Durand states the interesting fact that he generally produces 3,000 new varieties annually, and including the year 1876, he had already originated about 50,000 seedlings. While some of these have already secured great celebrity, like the Great American, I do not know of one that promises to maintain a continued and national popularity. I regard his old Black Defiance and the later Pioneer as his best seedlings, so far as I have seen them. Very many others do not have even his success. We may have to experiment for years before we obtain a seedling worth preserving; nevertheless, in the heart of each propagator lurks the hope that he may draw the prize of prizes.
I will close this chapter with a few simple and practical suggestions. It is not necessary to place the seeds in ice. They may be sown in July, in rich soil, rendered fine and mellow, and in a half-shady position; and the surface should be kept moist by watering, and a sprinkling of a little very fine compost, that will prevent the ground from baking. Some of the seeds will germinate that season, more will come up the following spring. Or, they may be started in a cold frame under glass, and hastened in their growth so that good-sized plants are ready for the fruiting-bed by September. Mr. Durand plants his seed in the spring, and the seedlings bear the following year. The plants should be set eighteen inches apart each way in the fruiting-bed. When they blossom, note and mark all the pistillates as such. Those that grow feebly, and whose foliage scalds or burns in the sun, root out at once. The Spartan law of death to the feeble and deformed should be rigorously enforced in the fruit garden. The first year of fruiting will satisfy you that the majority of seedlings are to be thrown away. Those that give special promise should be lifted with a large ball of earth, and planted where they may be kept pure from mixture, and given further trial. Remember that a seedling may do better the first year than ever after, and that only a continued and varied trial can prove its worth. All runners should be kept off, unless the ground is infested with grubs, and there is danger of losing a promising variety of which we have but one specimen. If so fortunate as to raise superior seedlings, test them side by side, and under the same conditions with the best kinds in existence, before calling to them public attention. Try them, also, in light and heavy soils; and, if possible, send them to trusted friends who will subject them to varied climates in widely separated localities. If, however, you find them vigorous and productive on the light, poor soil of your own place, you may hope much for them elsewhere. No berry will be generally popular that requires much petting. I only state this as a fact. In my opinion, some varieties are so superb in size and flavor that they deserve high culture, and well repay it.
It is a question whether, except for the purposes of propagation, pistillate varieties should be preserved and sent out. Mr. Fuller and others take ground against them, and their views are entitled to great respect, but with such kinds as the Golden Defiance and Champion in my garden, I am not prepared to condemn them. One objection urged against them is that many purchase a single variety, and, should it prove a pistillate, they would have no fruit. They would not deserve any, if they gave the subject so little attention. Every fruit catalogue states which are pistillates, and their need of a perfect-flowering kind near them. Again, it is urged that this necessary proximity of two kinds leads to mixtures. It need not, and, with the plant grower, can only result from gross carelessness. The different beds may be yards apart. In order to secure thorough fertilization, it is not at all necessary to plant so near that the two kinds can run together. In a large field of pistillates, every tenth row should be of a staminate, blossoming at the same time with the pistillate. The Kentucky seedling is a first-class staminate, but it should not be used to fertilize the Crescent, since the latter would almost be out of bloom before the former began to blossom. Plant early pistillates with early staminates, and late with late.
Many ask me: "Do strawberries mix by being planted near each other?" They mix only by running together, so that you can scarcely distinguish the two kinds; but a Wilson plant will produce Wilson runners to the end of time; and were one plant surrounded by a million other varieties, it would still maintain the Wilson characteristics. It is through the seeds, and seeds only, that one variety has any appreciable effect upon another. Many have confused ideas on this point.
A man brought to the Centennial Exhibition, at Philadelphia, a pot of strawberries that attracted great attention, for the fruit was magnificent. I suggested to him that it resembled the Jucunda, and he said that it was a cross between that berry and the Seth Boyden. This was a combination that promised so well that I went twenty miles, on a very hot day, to see his bed, and found that the crossing was simply the interlacing of the runners of the two distinct varieties, and that I could tell the intermingled Jucunda and Boyden plants apart at a glance. Such crossing would make no marked change in varieties if continued for centuries.
The enemies and diseases of the strawberry will be grouped in a general chapter on these subjects.