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In connection with the White and Red Wood and Alpine strawberries, we find in 1623 the name of the "Hautbois" or Haarbeer strawberry, the Fragaria elatior of the botanists. This second species, a native of Germany, resembles the Alpine in some respects, but is a larger and stockier plant. Like the Fragaria vesca, its fruit-stalks are erect and longer than the leaves, but the latter are larger than the foliage of the Alpine, and are covered with short hairs, both on the upper and under surface, which give them a rough appearance. As far as I can learn, this species still further resembles the Alpines in possessing little capability of improvement and variation. Even at this late day the various named kinds are said to differ from each other but slightly. There is a very marked contrast, however, between the fruit of the Hautbois and Alpine species, for the former has a peculiar musky flavor which has never found much favor in this country. It is, therefore, a comparatively rare fruit in our gardens, nor do we find much said of it in the past.

There is scarcely any record of progress until after the introduction of the two great American species. It is true that in 1660 a fruit grower at Montreuil, France, is "said to have produced a new variety from the seed of the Wood strawberry," which was called the "Cappron," and afterward the "Fressant." It was named as a distinct variety one hundred years later, but it may be doubted whether it differed greatly from its parent. Be this as it may, it is said to be the first improved variety of which there is any record.

Early in the 17th century, intercourse with this continent led to the introduction of the most valuable species in existence, the "Virginian" strawberry (Fragaria Virginiana), which grows wild from the Arctic regions to Florida, and westward to the Rocky Mountains. It is first named in the catalogue of Jean Robin, botanist to Louis XIII., in 1624. During the first century of its career in England, it was not appreciated, but as its wonderful capacity for variation and improvement—in which it formed so marked a contrast to the Wood strawberry—was discovered, it began to receive the attention it deserved. English gardeners learned the fact, of which we are making so much to-day, that by simply sowing its seeds, new and possibly better varieties could be produced. From that time and forward, the tendency has increased to originate, name and send out innumerable seedlings, the majority of which soon pass into oblivion, while a few survive and become popular, usually in proportion to their merit.

The Fragaria Virginiana, therefore, the common wild strawberry that is found in all parts of North America east of the Rocky Mountains, is the parent of nine-tenths of the varieties grown in our gardens; and its improved descendants furnish nearly all of the strawberries of our markets. As we have seen, the Fragaria vesca, or the Alpine species of Europe, is substantially the same to-day as it was a thousand years ago. But the capacity of the Virginian strawberry for change and improvement is shown by those great landmarks in the American culture of this fruit,—the production of Hovey's Seedling by C. M. Hovey, of Cambridge, Mass., forty-five years since; of the Wilson's Albany Seedling, originated by John Wilson, of Albany, N. Y., about twenty-five years ago, and, in our own time, of the superb varieties, Monarch of the West, Seth Boyden, Charles Downing, and Sharpless.

As in the Alpine species there are two distinct strains,—the Alpine of the Continent, and the Wood strawberry of England,—so in the wild Virginian species there are two branches of the family,—the Eastern and the Western. The differences are so marked that some writers have asserted that there are two species; but we have the authority of Professor Gray for saying that the Western, or Fragaria Illincensis, is "perhaps" a distinct species, and he classifies it as only a very marked variety.

There are but two more species of the strawberry genus. Of the first of these, the Fragaria Indica, or "Indian" strawberry, there is little to say. It is a native of Northern India, and differs so much from the other species that it was formerly named as a distinct genus. It has yellow flowers, and is a showy house-plant, especially for window-baskets, but the fruit is dry and tasteless. It is said by Professor Gray to have escaped cultivation and become wild in some localities of this country.

Fragaria Chilensis is the last great species or subdivision that we now have to consider. Like the F. Virginiana, it is a native of the American continent, and yet we have learned to associate it almost wholly with Europe. It grows wild on the Pacific slope, from Oregon to Chili, creeping higher and higher up the mountains as its habitat approaches the equator. "It is a large, robust species, with very firm, thick leaflets, soft and silky on the under side." The flowers are larger than in the other species; the fruit, also, in its native condition, averages much larger, stands erect instead of hanging, ripens late, is rose-colored, firm and sweet in flesh, and does not require as much heat to develop its saccharine constituents; but it lacks the peculiar sprightliness and aroma of the Virginia strawberry. It has become, however, the favorite stock of the European gardeners, and seems better adapted to transatlantic climate and soil than to ours. The first mention of the Fragaria Chilensis, or South American strawberry, says Mr. Fuller, "is by M. Frezier, who, in 1716, in his journey to the South Sea, found it at the foot of the Cordillera mountains near Quito, and carried it home to Marseilles, France." At that time it was called the Chili strawberry, and the Spaniards said that they brought it from Mexico.

From Mr. W. Collett Sandars, an English antiquarian, I learned that seven plants were shipped from Chili and were kept alive during the voyage by water which M. Frezier saved from his allowance, much limited owing to a shortness of supply. He gave two of the plants to M. de Jessieu, "who cultivated them with fair success in the royal gardens." In 1727, the Chili strawberry was introduced to England, but not being understood it did not win much favor.

Mr. Fuller further states: "We do not learn from any of the old French works that new varieties were raised from the Chili strawberry for at least fifty years after its introduction." Duchesne, in 1766, says that "Miller considered its cultivation abandoned in England on account of its sterility. The importations from other portions of South America appeared to have met with better success; and, early in the present century, new varieties of the F. Chilensis, as well as of the Virginiana, became quite abundant in England and on the Continent."

If we may judge from the characteristics of the varieties imported to this country of late years, the South American species has taken the lead decidedly abroad, and has become the parent stock from which foreign culturists, in the main, are seeking to develop the ideal strawberry. But in all its transformations, and after all the attempts to infuse into it the sturdier life of the Virginian strawberry, it still remembers its birthplace, and falters and often dies in the severe cold of our winters, or, what is still worse, the heat and drought of our summers. As a species, it requires the high and careful culture that they are able and willing to give it in Europe. The majority of imported varieties have failed in the United States, but a few have become justly popular in regions where they can be grown. The Triomphe de Gand may be given as an example, and were I restricted to one variety I should take this. The Jucunda, also, is one of the most superb berries in existence; and can be grown with great profit in many localities.

Thus the two great species which to-day are furnishing ninety-nine hundredths of the strawberries of commerce and of the garden, both in this country and abroad, came from America, the Fragaria Chilensis reaching our Eastern States by the way of Europe, and in the form of the improved and cultivated varieties that have won a name abroad. We are crossing the importations with our own native stock. President Wilder's superb seedling, which has received his name, is an example of this blending process. This berry is a child of the La Constante and Hovey's Seedling, and, therefore, in this one beautiful and most delicious variety we have united the characteristics of the two chief strawberry species of the world, the F. Virginiana and F. Chilensis.

It will be seen that the great law of race extends even to strawberry plants. As in the most refined and cultivated peoples there is a strain of the old native stock, which ever remains, a source of weakness or strength, and will surely show itself in certain emergencies, so the superb new varieties of strawberries, the latest products of horticultural skill, speedily indicate in the rough-and-tumble of ordinary culture whether they have derived their life from the hardy F. Virginiana or the tender and fastidious F. Chilensis. The Monarch of the West and the Jucunda are the patricians of the garden, and on the heavy portions of my land at Cornwall I can scarcely say to which I give the preference. But the Monarch is Anglo-Saxon and the Jucunda is of a Latin race; or to drop metaphor, the former comes of a species that can adapt itself to conditions extremely varied, and even very unfavorable, and the latter cannot.