forbear. This saying has been quoted by the greater part of the
human race, and attributed to nearly every prominent man, from
Adam to Mr. Beecher. There are said to be unfortunates whom the
strawberry poisons. The majority of us feel as if we could attain
Methuselah's age if we had nothing worse to contend with. Praising
the strawberry is like "painting the lily;" therefore let us give
our attention at once to the essential details of its successful
culture.

As we have intimated before, this fruit as we find it in our
gardens, even though we raise foreign kinds, came originally from
America. The two great species, Fragaria chilensis, found on the
Pacific slope from Oregon to Chili, and Fragaria virginiana,
growing wild in all parts of North America east of the Rocky
Mountains, are the sources of all the fine varieties that have
been named and cultivated. The Alpine strawberry (Fragaria vesca),
which grows wild throughout the northern hemisphere, does not
appear capable of much variation and development under
cultivation. Its seeds, sown under all possible conditions,
reproduce the parent plant. Foreign gardeners eventually learned,
however, that seeds of the Chili and Virginia strawberry produced
new varieties which were often much better than their parents. As
time passed, and more attention was drawn to this subject, superb
varieties were originated abroad, many of them acquiring a wide
celebrity. In this case, as has been true of nearly all other
fruits, our nursery-men and fruit-growers first looked to Europe
for improved varieties. Horticulturists were slow to learn that in
our own native species were the possibilities of the best success.
The Chili strawberry, brought directly from the Pacific coast to
the East, is not at home in our climate, and is still more