Part 53

It is ardently to be hoped that, hereafter, we shall have less premature and positive assertion, upon unripe observations, than has characterized the early stages of this controversy. We will take the liberty of following Mr. Hovey in his magazine, between the years 1842 and 1846, not for any pleasure that we have in the singular vicissitudes of opinion chronicled there, but because an eminent cultivator, writer, and editor of, hitherto, the only horticultural magazine in our country, has such influence and authority in forming the morals and customs of the kingdom of Horticulture, that every free subject of this beautiful realm is interested to have its chiefs men of such accuracy that it will not be dangerous to take their statements.

In 1842, Mr. Longworth communicated an article on the fertile and sterile characters of several varieties of strawberries for Mr. Hovey’s magazine, which Mr. H. for subject-matter, indorsed. In the November number, Mr. Colt substantially advocated the sentiments of Mr. L.; and the editor, remarking upon Mr. Coit’s article, recognized distinctly the existence of male and female plants.

He (Mr. H.) says that, of four kinds mentioned by Mr. C. as unfruitful, two were so “from the want of staminate or male plants;” and “the cause of the barrenness is thus easily explained.” And he goes on to explain divers cases upon this hypothesis; and still more resolutely he says, that all wild strawberries have not perfect flowers; “in a dozen or two plants which we examined last spring some were perfect (the italics are ours) having both stamens and pistils; others, only pistils, and others, only stamens; thus showing that the defect, mentioned by Mr. Longworth, exists in the original species.” He closes by urging cultivators to set rows of early Virginia among the beds for the sake of impregnating the rest.

Mr. Hovey’s next formal notice was exactly one year from the foregoing, November, 1843, and it appears thus: “We believe it is now the generally received opinion of all intelligent cultivators (italics are ours again) that there is no necessity of making any distinction in regard to the sexual character of the plants When forming new beds. The idea of male and female flowers, first originated, we believe, by Mr. Longworth, of Ohio, is now considered as exploded.” Such a sudden change as this was brought about, he says, by additional information received during that year by means of his correspondents, and by more experience on his own part. He says nothing of male blossoms and female blossoms, which he had himself seen in wild strawberries. Mr. Hovey then assumed the theory that cultivation, good or bad, is the cause of fertile or unfertile beds of strawberries, and he says: “in conclusion, we think we may safely aver, that there is not the least necessity of cultivating any one strawberry near another (our italics) to insure the fertility of the plants, provided they are under a proper state of cultivation.”

Mr. Hovey now instituted experiments, which he promised to publish, by which to bring the matter to the only true test; and he, from time to time, re-promised to give the result to the public, which, thus far, we believe, he has forgotten to do.

His magazine for 1844 opens, as that of 1843 closed; and in the first number he says, “the oftener our attention is called to this subject, the more we feel confirmed in the opinon that the theory of Mr. Longworth is entirely unfounded; that there is no such thing as male and female plants, though certain causes may produce, as we know they have, fertile and sterile ones.”

Nevertheless, in the next issue but one this peremptory language is again softened down, and a doubt even appears, when he says, “IF Mr. Longworth’s theory should prove true,” etc. We, among others, waited anxiously for the promised experiments; but if published we never saw them. The subject rather died out of his magazine until August, 1845, when, in speaking of the Boston Pine, a second fine seedling of his own raising, he is seen bearing away on the other tack, if not with all sails set, yet with enough to give the ship headway in the right direction: “Let the causes be what they may, it is sufficient for all practical purposes, to know, that the most abundant crops (italics ours) can be produced by planting some sort abounding in staminate flowers, in the near vicinity of those which do not possess them.” P. 293. And on p. 444 he reiterates the advice to plant near the staminate varieties. In the August number for 1846, p. 309, Mr. Hovey shows himself a thorough convert to Mr. Longworth’s views, by indorsing, in the main, the report of the committee of the Cincinnati Horticultural Society. We hope after so various a voyage, touching at so many points, that he will now abide steadfast in the truth.

We look upon this as a very grave matter, not because the strawberry question is of such paramount, although it is of no inconsiderable importance; but it is of importance whether accredited scientific magazines should be trustworthy; whether writers or popular editors should be responsible for mistakes entirely unnecessary. We blame no man for vacillation, while yet in the process of investigation, nor for coming at the truth gradually, since this is the necessity of our condition to learn only by degrees, and by painful siftings. The very first requisite for a writer is, that he be worthy of trust in his statements. No man can be trusted who ventures opinions upon uninvestigated matters; who states facts with assurance which he has not really ascertained; who evinces rashness, haste, carelessness, credulity, or fickleness in his judgments. The question of perfect or imperfect blossoms depends upon the simplest exercise of eyesight. It requires no measurements, no process of the laboratory, no minute dissections or nice calculations; it requires only that a man should see what he looks at.

When a boy, playing “how many fingers do I hold up,” by dint of peeping from under the bandage, we managed to make very clever guesses of how many lily-fingers some roguish lassie was holding in tempting show before our bandaged eyes; but some folks are not half so lucky with both eyes wide open, and the stamens and pistils standing before them.

If such a latitude is permitted to those who conduct the investigations peculiar to horticulture, who can confide in the publication of facts, observations or experiments? Of what use will be journals and magazines? They become like chronometers that will not keep time; like a compass that has lost its magnetic sensibility; like a guide who has lost his own way, and leads his followers through brake, and morass, and thicket, into interminable wanderings. Sometimes, the consciousness of faults in ourselves, which should make us lenient toward others, only serves to produce irritable fault-finding. After a comparison of opinions and facts, through a space of five years, with the most distinguished cultivators, East and West, Mr. Longworth is now universally admitted to have sustained himself in all the essential points which he first promulgated—not discovered, for he made no claims of that sort. The gardeners and the magazines of the East have, at length, adopted his practical views, after having stoutly, many of them, contested them.

It was, therefore, with unfeigned surprise, that we read Mr. Hovey’s latest remarks in the September number of his magazine, in which, with some asperity, he roundly charges Mr. Longworth with manifold errors, and treats him with a contempt which would lead one, ignorant of the controversy, to suppose that Mr. Hovey had never made a mistake, and that Mr. Longworth had been particularly fertile of them. Thus: “Mr. Longworth’s remarks abound in so many errors and inconsistencies, that we shall expect scarcely to notice all.” “Another gross assertion,” etc. Referring to another topic, he says, “This question we, therefore, consider as satisfactorily settled, without discussing Mr. Longworth’s conflicting views about male and female, Keen’s,” etc.

This somewhat tragical comedy is now nearly played out, and we have spoken a word just before the fall of the curtain, because, as chroniclers of events, and critics of horticultural literature and learning, it seemed no less than our duty. We have highly appreciated Mr. Hovey’s various exertions for the promotion of the art and science of horticulture, nor will his manifest errors and short-comings in this particular instance, disincline us to receive from his pen whatsoever is good.

We hope that our remarks will not be construed as a defence of western men or western theories, but as the defence of the truth, and of one who has truly expounded it, though, in this case, theory and its defender happen to be of western origin. Whatever errors have crept into Mr. Longworth’s remarks should be faithfully expurgated; and perhaps it may be Mr. Hovey’s duty to perform the lustration. If so, courtesy would seem to require that it should be done with some consciousness, that through this whole controversy Mr. Longworth is now admitted to have been right in all essential matters; and if in error at all, only in minor particulars, while Mr. Hovey, in all the controversy, in respect to the plainest facts, has been changing from wrong to right, from right to wrong, and from wrong back to right again. We do not think that the admirable benefits which Mr. Longworth has conferred upon the whole community by urging the improved method of cultivating the strawberry, has been adequately appreciated. We still less like to see gratitude expressed in the shape of snarling gibes and petty cavils.

We will close these remarks by the correction of a matter which Mr. Downing states. While he assents to all the practical aspects of Mr. Longworth’s views, he dissents as to some matters of fact and philosophy, and among others, to the fact that Hovey’s seedling is always and only a pistillate plant. He thinks that originally it had perfect flowers, but that after bearing twice or thrice on the same roots the plants degenerate and become either pistillate or staminate. He says, “Hovey’s seedling strawberry, at first, was a perfect sort in its flower, but at this moment more than half the plants in this country have become pistillate.”

Mr. Hovey himself states the contrary on p. 112 of his magazine for 1844. He denies that there are two kinds of blossoms to his seedling, and says, “the flowers are all of one kind, with both pistils and stamens, but the latter quite short and hidden under the receptacle.” This is the common form of all pistillate blossoms, and shows, in so far as Mr. Hovey’s observations are to be trusted, that, at its starting-point and home, Hovey’s seedling was, as with us it now invariably is, so far as we have ever seen it, a pistillate plant.

STRAWBERRIES.

Directions for the culture of the strawberry will vary with circumstances; as, whether it is raised for private use, or for market. But, for whatever purpose cultivated, respect must be invariably had to the fact of staminate and pistillate flowers, or male and female. Each flower contains the rudiments of both the male and female organs. But the male organs are more or less defective in one set of plants and the female in another “and, in the Hudson and some others, it amounts to a complete separation of the sexes. In some of the male (staminate) varieties more or less of the blossoms are also partially perfect in the female organs and will produce some fruit.

“Every flower contains both the male and female organs; and, in the white and monthly, both organs are always perfect in the same blossom, as far as my experience goes. In other kinds, the male organs are more or less defective in one set of plants, and the female in the other; and, in the Hudson and some other varieties, it amounts to a complete separation of the sexes. The male organs are so defective in one set of plants, and the female in the other, that an acre of either would not produce a single fruit. In some of the male (staminate) varieties, more or less of the blossoms are also more or less perfect in the female organs, and will produce more or less fruit; but I have never seen a female plant with the male organs sufficiently developed to produce a single perfect fruit. Hovey’s seedling, and some others, may produce deformed berries.”—Longworth.

Mr. Longworth, in consequence of this fact, always has a compartment allotted to male and one to female plants, and out of these he forms his beds, being able thus to insure a proper proportion of males to females. Mr. S. S. Jackson, a very skillful nurseryman of Cincinnati, usually, in selling plants, puts up ninety females to ten males in the hundred.

We shall now give the time and manner of planting of some of the best cultivators in the West, at the East, and in England.

Mr. Jackson says: “I plant any time from the first of April, till they are in bloom. I, one year, planted twenty-five square roods of ground; the plants were all in bloom when set out; and the next year I picked thirty-eight bushels, and there were fully ten bushels left on the vines.

“I plant them in this way: first plow or spade the ground; harrow it smooth; then strain a line on one side nine inches from the edge, and a row from twelve to fifteen inches apart; then move the line eighteen inches, and plant another row; then move it three feet, and again eighteen inches—and so on till the ground is planted. I then go over and put one male plant every six feet, between the two rows. Keep them clear of weeds through the summer, and let them spread as much as they will.

“In the fall dress the out-walks eighteen inches wide, which will leave the beds three feet wide; and when it sets in cold, give them a light covering of straw; rake it off in the spring. You may then expect a full crop. It is best to make a new bed once in two or three years.”

But plantations may be made through the summer, and as late as September; of course, the earlier in the season the better established the plants will become before winter, and the larger the next summer’s crop. Thus, a bed formed in September would bear very scantily; while Mr. Jackson’s beds, formed in the spring, produced a large crop the next season.

Mr. Kenrick gives the following methods as practised by market gardeners near Boston; the first one strikes us as being the most economical way of working strawberries, on a large scale, that we have seen:

“In the vicinity of Boston, the following mode is often adopted. The vines are usually transplanted in August. The rows are formed from eighteen inches to two feet asunder. The runners, during the first year, are destroyed. In the second year, they are suffered to grow and fill the interval, and in the autumn of that year, the whole old rows are turned under with the spade, and the rows are thus shifted to the middle of the space. The same process is repeated every second year.

“Another mode, which may be recommended generally, is to plant the strawberries in rows thirty inches asunder, and nine inches distant in the row, and suffer the vines to extend to the width of eighteen inches, leaving twelve inches’ space for an alley; or allow eighteen inches’ width to the alleys, and three feet asunder to the rows; and to form new beds every three years, or never to suffer the bed to exist over four years; and to plant out in August in preference to spring.”

Dr. Bayne of Alexandria, D. C., gives his method of producing very large fruit. The peculiarity of his treatment is the use of undecomposed or green manure. Almost every other cultivator recommends well rotted manure; and, we are inclined to think, with the better reason. We have found some English cultivators who agree with him; but the most dissuade from the practice, as making plants productive of leaves rather than fruit.