The injury to the seed-leaves of young plants by fleabeetles is annoying, but never extensive enough to warrant the application of a remedy over the large area of a melon crop. Of the several plants in each hill a vigorous one may be expected to escape injury, until the development of rough leaves, when the danger from this source

ceases.

The watermelon is a food plant of the yellowish green, nearly translucent larva of an insect very similar to the pickle-worm moth, Phacellura hyalinitalis. If this insect has two broods, the first, or spring brood, must be very limited in numbers; for I have never known the early melon crop for shipment to be damaged, while later crops suffer very severely. Not only are the leaves devoured, but the worms gnaw and penetrate the fruit. is, of course, the policy of the farmer to destroy the insects in all its stages, whenever possible; but no remedy has as yet been found that can be profitably applied. The Phacellura is known to be subject to two parasitic insects the Pimpla conquisitor, and a Tachina fly.

It

CHAPTER XXX.

THE STRAWBERRY (Fragaria).

Fraisier, French; Erdbeere, German; Aardbezie, Dutch; Pianta di fragola, Italian; and Fresa, Spanish.

The Strawberry, with the majority of the cultivated fruits of Northern climates, belongs to the Rose family. It well deserves its botanical name, Fragaria (from fragro, to emit a sweet odor), for no other fruit is so fragrant. While some who have written upon the straw

berry make nearly a dozen species, the most accurate botanists fail to find more than three or four, that are really distinct. The most widely distributed species is Fragaria vesca, the Wood or Alpine strawberry. In this the seeds (really one-seeded seed-vessels) are not sunken in a cavity in the fruit, but are prominent upon the surface. This is the most widely distributed species, being found wild in Europe, Asia, and in this country. From this are derived all the cultivated Alpine strawberries, so popular on the Continent of Europe, and so seldom grown in this country.

F. grandiflora, the Large-flowered strawberry, is a native of South America, and on the Pacific coast exteads northward to California. The Chilian strawberry (F. Chilensis) is now regarded as a form of this.

F. Virginiana, the Virginia or Scarlet strawberry is our most common wild strawberry. It is found from the Arctic circle to Florida, and extends northward to Oregon and Washington Territory. Occurring in a great variety of localities, several of its forms have been described as species. This and F. grandiflora are the parents of the strawberries generally cultivated. They differ from the Alpine species in having their seeds in a cavity more or less deep. The other species which have been described as distinct are of no importance to the cultivator.

The strawberry was apparently known to the Romans only in its wild state, for none of their writers have mentioned it as among cultivated fruits. It is first mentioned as having been cultivated in England during the reign of Richard III, in 1483. With the exception of a variety of Wood strawberry raised in France about 1660, no improved variety of the strawberry was known until late in the last century, after the introduction of the Largeflowered and the Virginia strawberries. With the production of improved seedlings, as well as hybrids, new

varieties increased rapidly both in this country and in Europe, varieties of the former species seeming to be better adapted to the climate of Europe, while those of the latter are preferred in this country.

The wild berry is vastly superior to most of the new varieties, which the mania for size, regardless of the more valuable qualities of flavor, and aroma, has developed.

All the wild species and most of the improved varieties have perfect flowers. They contain both stamens and pistils, and are termed hermaphrodite flowers. In the strawberry, the numerous pistils are crowded upon a rounded body in the centre of the flower, called the receptacle. Immediately around these are the numerous stamens. As soon as the pistils are fertilized by the pollen from the stamens, they begin to grow, and the lower part of each one ripens into a diminutive, bony, oneseeded nutlet, which popularly passes for the seed, and it is convenient, for the sake of brevity, to call it so. As the pistils themselves, after fertilization, begin to ripen, the receptacle on which they are placed begins to grow, and at length becomes the juicy, fine flavored mass with which we are familiar as the strawberry, though in structure it is not the fruit, but merely an appendage to the proper fruits. Unless the pistil is fructified by the pollen of the same, or of some other flower, through the medium. of insects or of the wind, it must remain sterile, or fruitless, or "blind." The flowers of some of the improved varieties, particularly those originating in this country, are entirely without stamens, or have them imperfectly developed. Such are the "pistillate" varieties, as for instance the old "Hovey's Seedling," and the later "Crescent." Having no stamens, they must be fertilized by pollen from other flowers and we must plant at least one row of a perfect variety to each ten rows of the pistillate kind, for that to become fruitful. There are many disadvantages connected with the cultivation of these pistil

late varieties, and as there are many as good, or better, with perfect flowers, the former should be discarded.

VARIETIES AND YIELD.

A variety may be adapted to a certain soil and climate, and be totally unsuited under different conditions not very distant. Of the many varieties that are fine and popular at the North, few succeed under the continued heat and dryness of a part of our summer season.

The principal requirements of a market variety for shipment to distant points are:

First, Its adaptability to our climate.-Second, Productiveness.-Third, Fair size.-Fourth, Sufficient firmness to enable it to endure the rough handling and delay of transportation without injury, so that it may arrive in market in good presentable appearance and condition. The old "Wilson's Albany," or "Wilson," and the "Neunan " or "Charleston" meet these conditions better than any others. The latter is a more attractive and better flavored berry, is more productive of runners, and is rapidly superseding the "Wilson" as as the Southern market variety.

Where all the conditions for its successful culture are favorable, the strawberry has long been, in the vicinity of large cities, the gardener's most valuable crop.

*

As long ago as 1850, the average net profit of a Scotch acre of strawberries in the vicinity of Edinburgh was from one hundred and seventy-five to two hundred dollars, the land renting at from twenty-five to seventy-five dollars per acre.

The heaviest shipments to our Northern markets are made from Norfolk, Virginia, where probably the largest strawberry farm in the world is located, one cultivator having two hundred and fifty acres in this fruit. Large *The Scotch acre contains six thousand and eighty-four square yards, and is about one and a quarter acre English.

shipments are also made from Charleston, S. C., to the Eastern markets, and from Mobile to those of the West. In 1879, seven hundred and thirty-four thousand and ninety-three quarts were shipped from Charleston. Extensive plantings for shipment have also been made in Florida and South-western Georgia, one farmer having twenty acres near Thomasville, Thomas County.

Although there are lands to be had in the vicinity of Savannah, with adequate drainage, and so admirably adapted to the cultivation of strawberries, that the best fruit farms in the country could be established in this locality, not enough are grown to supply the local demand, and supplies for that purpose are procured from Florida and Charleston. In the local market the retail price ranged from fifteen cents to one dollar per quart-basket the past season, averaging thirty cents. The first sales were made February 20th. The first shipments from Florida, about February 1st, that arrive in good order in the Northern market, sometimes bring from three to five dollars. Larger shipments of one hundred quarts and upwards generally bring about two dollars. Heavier, and later shipments, soon reduce the price.

From Charleston, the first shipments, coming late in March, bring from seventy-five cents to one dollar per quart, but the price drops, as the quantity increases, to from thirty-five to fifty cents per quart.

The first from North Carolina bring about the same price as Charleston berries. The immense quantities shipped from Norfolk, commencing about May 10th, notwithstanding the fresher state of the fruit, bring the price down to from twenty-five to thirty-five cents, and sometimes lower still.

New York is the best market for strawberries. No fancy prices are realized in Baltimore.

Occasionally we enjoy in the latitudes of Savannah and Mobile a sufficiently protracted period of warm weather