[263]

Journ. of Horticulture Jan 20 — 1863 p 46

["CROSSING STRAWBERRIES. I had intended, on seeing in my November part of your

Journal the question put by Mr. Darwin about crossing Strawberries, to have replied, mentioning an experiment I had made in that way, but having occasion to go to the country for a time, I postponed doing so. It had gone out of my head till after my return, when I was again reminded of it by seeing two answers to Mr. Darwin's letter in the December part of your Journal. These answers do not exactly meet the question, neither does mine precisely, as I am now to give it. But, as the subject is one of high interest and referring to a tribe of plants among which I have been experimenting for many years, any item of information, however small, may not be without its use to some of your other readers, if it should be valueless, as I fear it may, to Mr. Darwin.

Having many years ago received from my friend Dr. Jameson, of Ecuador, seeds of a large-fruited Strawberry, cultivated at Quito as an importation from Chili, I sowed them and raised a very large-berried brood, but with fruit so insipid that I regarded them as utterly worthless. Having at the same time a very fine but intractable kind of Strawberry in my garden, called " Myatt's Pine," which after a time ceased to bear fruit, I be-

thought myself of trying to infuse its delicious aroma into its robust congener from Chili; and I was induced to this the more from observing one valuable property in this latter species— namely, its stout fruitstalk— so I made the cross and have now cultivated the progeny for two or three years. [….] Plants are at Mr. Darwin's service if he wish for them. They are a good deal alike, yet there is one of a peculiar habit, very dwarf, and throwing off few or no runners, the fruit of which is globose, not angular, as is the case with most others of the batch.

It may not be uninteresting to Mr. Darwin and your general readers, to mention a result in crossing which I have not heard of being before detected. […] — Isaac Anderson-Henry, Hay Lodge, Trinity, Edinburgh."]

Hybrid between Red & Black Grouse & Pheasants