G.M. Darrow, The Strawberry: History, Breeding and Physiology
IMPORTANT STRAWBERRY VARIETIES are numerous today, displaying many characters and adaptations; but this, of course, has not always been so. While most of the varieties presently grown were introduced by agricultural experiment stations, earlier varieties, both in the United States and abroad, were originated by private breeders. Some of these privately originated varieties are especially important for their service as parents; those who bred them are notable for their perceptiveness and foresight. It is these private breeders who did much to set in motion the strawberry breeding work which continues today in experiment stations in many parts of the world. The following chapters first chronicle the work of early breeders and those of today, then they proceed to describe the breeding work of North American agricultural experiment stations, as well as of those abroad. Lastly, in this section, some of the knowledge gained from this experimental work is described, along with the uses to which this knowledge has been and can be directed.
Six great breeders of strawberries belong to the pre-experiment station period of the nineteenth century. The first American fruit breeder was Hovey, who made six controlled crosses of strawberry in 1834 when he was twenty-two years old and obtained the Hovey. The second breeder, Wilder, made crosses over a period of at least thirty years and originated the President Wilder strawberry in 1861. The other four who were active somewhat later (partly in the nineteenth and partly in the twentieth century), made crosses for many years before obtaining their most notable varieties -- Cloud, introduced the Cloud in 1889 and the Klondike in 1901; Reasoner introduced his Dunlap in 1900; Howard first fruited the Howard 17 (Premier) in 1906; and Etter introduced his Ettersburg 121 in 1907 and Ettersburg 80 in 1912. These six men were true strawberry breeders whose work met with notable success, although in the case of Wilder the President Wilder did not become a dominant variety. Other breeders may have done as much work, or even more than some of these, but they were not so successful in obtaining notable varieties, either because of the parental material available to them, or because of their environment, or because of their way of making and selecting crosses. Their contributions while not notable, nevertheless helped to make the modern American strawberry.
What different kinds of men these six were! Two were Bostonians, Hovey, a nurseryman and publisher of a fine early horticultural magazine; Wilder, a successful wholesale drygoods merchant, by avocation an enthusiastic amateur horticulturist; the third, Cloud, a railroad station agent of Louisiana; the fourth, Reasoner, of Illinois, an itinerant preacher who was also a scholar, an architect, and a builder of churches; Howard, a small fruit farmer and seedsman of western Massachusetts; and Etter, a mountaineer homesteader of northwestern California. All entertained the vision of finer strawberries and they, with the help of others, changed the strawberry from a wild fruit into the fine, modern, cultivated crop we have today. Of the many others who obtained fine strawberry varieties, Wilson, of the middle nineteenth century, was a small nurseryman of Albany, New York; Durand, somewhat later, was an artist; and Rockhill, at the beginning of the twentieth century, a grain farmer of central Iowa. These three are important, one for the notable Wilson variety, the second for the New Jersey Scarlet, the Virginian parent of Crescent, and the third, Rockhill, for advancing a special group of berries -- the everbearers.
Charles Mason Hovey (Fig. 12-1), the first notable North American strawberry breeder, was born October 26, 1810, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. At the age of twenty-two, he and his brother started a seed store at Cambridge and a one-acre nursery, which was greatly enlarged eight years later. Hovey envisioned a magazine that would develop an intelligent class of gardeners in America just as the Gardeners Chronicle was started about the same time in England. When he was twenty-four, he founded American Gardeners' Magazine, which later became Magazine of Horticulture, a great periodical by the best standards of today. He was its editor for thirty-four years, for as long as it existed. More or less concurrent with this, he began the publication of Fruits of America, which contained more than 100 color plates and was published in parts appearing from 1847 to 1856, two volumes were completed and a third begun. On his place in 1845 he is said to have had 1,000 pear and 400 apple varieties, as well as those of many other fruits. He grew 200 varieties of camellias, many of them his own originations, from which some were selected for exhibition in London. Many varieties of trees and shrubs had their origin with him. Throughout life he was an active member and supporter of the Massachusetts Horticulture Society and was its president for four years. He was an honorary member of the Royal Societies of London and of Edinburgh.
In 1832 Hovey had 12, and two years later, more than 50 varieties of strawberries in his tests. Another account states that he had three varieties when he was only twenty years old. He found that neither Keens Seedling, introduced in England in 1820, nor any other large-fruited strawberry was fully hardy. In 1833, he made the crosses that resulted in Hovey's Seedling and Boston Pine. He fruited his seedlings in 1836 and by 1838 he was convinced that one seedling was superior to all others and he introduced it as Hovey. So far as we know, he did no further strawberry breeding. The Hovey was a failure as a commercial variety, except in New England where it was the chief, or one of the chief varieties until about 1890. However, compared with other large-fruited kinds of 1840, the Hovey was hardier and larger, and its flavor was as high or higher. Under high culture it was productive. Compared with the native F. virginiana varieties, though, it was not hardy and it produced few runner plants. Moreover, although called perfect-flowered when introduced, it was pistillate under most conditions and needed another kind as a pollinator.
When Hovey made the six crosses which resulted in the Hovey, he somehow lost his labels for the seedlings. At first he felt certain that the Hovey came from the cross Melon x Keens Seedling, but later he stated that he supposed it came from the cross Methven Scarlet x Keens Seedling. Methven Scarlet originated in England and was probably a hybrid of Hudson Bay, a F. virginiana variety with some "pine." Hovey considered Methven Scarlet rather insipid but it was hard, large, and showy. The Hovey was described as pistillate, very large, round or ovate, slightly conical, never coxcomb, a deep shining red, but paler when grown in shade, seeds inserted in a slight cavity, flesh scarlet, firm, agreeably acid, high flavored, not surpassed by others, leaves large, rather light green, plants very vigorous -- more so than those of any other variety, perfectly hardy, ripening midseason two weeks after Early Virginia (Old Scarlet) and a week after Keens Seedling and Methven Scarlet.
In 1854 Hovey wrote that since 1834 immense numbers of seedling strawberries had been raised in the United States and at least 200 varieties introduced, but not a dozen were worth growing; that it was not easy to raise new kinds superior to old or even equal to them; and that nearly the maximum of excellence had been obtained. He looked to some improvement, but only with the most careful hybridizing and then only so slight as to be unobserved by many. He also noted that in England only Keens Seedling (1818) and British Queen (1834) were important at that time (see Chapter 6).
A major contribution of Hovey was his article "Some Remarks upon the Production of new varieties of Strawberries from Seeds," published July 1837 in his Magazine of Horticulture. He gave careful directions for making crosses and discussed the need for choosing the parents, suggesting Methven Scarlet for one parent because of its hardiness even though he noted that it did not have flavor. This and later articles by him undoubtedly stimulated others to start breeding.
Marshall P. Wilder (Fig. 12-2) was born in Ringe, New Hampshire, September 22, 1798, the eldest of nine children, and died December 16, 1886. He began school at four years of age. At sixteen he chose farm work instead of a college course. Soon he began work as a clerk in a store and by the time he was twenty-one, he became a partner. At twenty-six he moved to Boston, where he was a successful wholesale drygoods merchant, and in 1831 he moved to the Dorchester suburb where he lived till his death. He was, like his friend Hovey, greatly interested in pears. In his orchard he tested 1,200 kinds of pears and, at one time he had 2,500 trees, representing 800 kinds. He did far more crossing and originating of new varieties than did Hovey. He was one of the founders of the American Pomological Society and was its president, except for one term, from its organization in 1850 until his death. He was a founder of the Massachusetts Agriculture College (now the University of Massachusetts) and was a trustee of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is said to have continuously bred strawberries for over thirty years, and to have raised thousands of seedlings. His notable variety, President Wilder, was raised in 1861 and was a cross of Hovey x La Constante. It was perfect-flowered, large, light scarlet, high flavored, and was grown many years for its large, attractive berries of high dessert quality. Like the Hovey, it had to be grown in very fertile soils to obtain good crops and was probably not fully hardy. Like the Hovey also, it was grown chiefly by amateurs and by some for the Boston market.
Robert L. Cloud. Up to the time of the Civil War, only a few strawberries were grown in Louisiana and these were the very aromatic Old Scarlet (Early Scarlet, a selection of the wild Virginian). As early as 1868, the Wilson had been introduced and small lots of strawberries were shipped to Chicago, but carloads were not shipped until the 1880's. Robert L. Cloud was born December 6, 1854, in New Orleans. In 1866 he moved with his parents to Tickfaw, where he helped his father grow strawberries for the Louisiana market. About 1886, when he was the railroad shipping agent at Independence, Louisiana, he superintended the loading of the first iced refrigerator car of strawberries ever sent to the northern markets. By this time he had already started growing and testing seedlings, and about 1885 had introduced Big Bob, a cross of Cumberland Triumph x Neunan. He made no hand crosses, but instead depended on bees to pollinate pistillate varieties, and grew seedlings from them and from other seed. His Cloud, thought by him to be Crescent x Wilson, was introduced in 1889 and was widely grown in the South until about 1900. Except as parents, Lulu, introduced in 1895, and Pickerproof, introduced about 1898, never became important. In 1901 he introduced Klondike which quickly became the major berry in all the South and was the most grown variety in the United States from about 1905 until about 1935, when it was replaced by Blakemore and, to a slight extent, by Missionary. In Louisiana, however, Cloud's varieties were the leading ones, from the time of the introduction of Cloud until Klonmore was introduced in 1940. The Klondike was also a leading variety in southern California, southern Illinois, Maryland and Delaware. It is still raised extensively in Mexico. Cloud's later varieties, Payday and Perfect, which he was testing in 1915, never became important.
Cloud's great variety, Klondike (Fig. 10-10), was said by him to be a cross of Pickerproof x Hoffman, both Southern varieties. He gave its ancestry as follows:
To have grown and fruited seedlings, made and propagated selections, and to have enough plants to introduce his first variety by 1885, Mr. Cloud must have started raising and testing seedlings as early as 1880. He continued raising seedlings at least until 1915. He succeeded admirably in his main objective of obtaining a much better shipping variety that would grow vigorously after a relatively short rest period and under the relatively short photoperiods in southern States.
Rev. John Rogers Reasoner (Fig. 12-3) was born on a farm at West Union, Ohio, March 2, 1835, and died January 12, 1925, at Urbana, Illinois, when he was almost ninety years old. His early days were spent on a farm but he was also a plasterer by trade. When he was twenty, he settled along the southern border of Kentucky. During the Civil War, he joined a Kentucky regiment, of which he was chaplain for a while. He was also in the Sanitary Commission, the forerunner of our Red Cross. He joined the Methodist Conference and was first a pastor at Maysville, Kentucky, and then at two other places in Kentucky. Next, for two years, Reasoner was a builder and an architect. Then he returned to the ministry, holding pastorates in Ohio and Illinois and often serving as supervisor and laborer in the building of churches. Rev. Reasoner acquired a wide knowledge of history, sciences, and Greek and Hebrew literature, and had a splendid library. He gave talks on plant breeding and genetics and tried to instill a love of horticulture in his parishioners.
In 1901 Reasoner retired from the Ministry at Urbana and the last twenty-four years of his life were spent in following his special interests, especially plant breeding. He had always been interested in the strawberry. When he was six, his mother made him supervisor of strawberries in the home garden, but they did not bear a single berry, being probably all males. He began serious breeding about 1886, using Cumberland Triumph, Crescent, Capt. Jack, Sucker State, Warfield, Glendale, Sharpless, Windsor, and others. He had to work on parsonage lots, doing what he could in the time and space allotted. In 1890 he originated Dunlap, which he thought to be a cross of Crescent x Cumberland Triumph, and he introduced it in 1900. The Burrill, a cross of Crescent x Dunlap, made in 1909, was introduced in 1916. It was very similar to Dunlap and the nursery trade soon used the names interchangeably, but Dunlap, probably rightly, was the only name to persist. Rev. Reasoner was for a time Director of the Illinois State Horticultural Society Central District Experiment Stations. Dunlap is still grown somewhat, for it proved to be the hardiest of all standard varieties and of high quality.1
Arthur B. Howard (Fig. 12-4), the originator of the Howard 17 strawberry, was one of the very few Americans who started systematic berry breeding work before 1900. He had in mind an ideal strawberry and he pyramided the good qualities of the varieties he knew and propagated until he fruited his selection number 17 in 1906. He is said to have thought it the ideal strawberry. And it was the "ideal" strawberry for his location and time, more disease- and frost-resistant, more handsome, larger, and more productive than most other varieties of that day, and of good flavor. The Howard 17 was all this, and more, for it became the great parent of American strawberry varieties.
Arthur B. Howard was born of idealistic parents June 1, 1836, on a farm in Belchertown, Massachusetts, about nine miles from Amherst. At the age of fifteen, be went to live for a little over a year in the Putney, Vermont community of the Perfectionists (about twenty-six persons at this time), which was composed of people with strong religious belief, including the union of its members into one large family who held all things in common. At least during the winter, he attended the community school, whose library had the best available books and agricultural papers on gardening and fruit culture, Hovey's Magazine of Horticulture presumably among them. The community raised large gardens, and the head gardener of the community gave Howard the benefit of his long experience in gardening. What interested young Howard most was the raising of strawberries, for, in addition to the value of what the community consumed, $150.00 worth was sold from the community patch in one year. Plants also were sold. When he returned to the home farm, his father allowed him to use a third of an acre on which he set five varieties of strawberries -- Early Virginia (Old Scarlet), Burrs New Pine, Hovey, Chester, and a few Wilson. The next spring he planted another third of an acre, which he set all to Wilson. From 1,600 to 1,800 quarts were harvested for the first crop from the first field, and the following year from the combined fields over 3,200 quarts were picked, for which he received over $500.00. His interest in the strawberry thus proved well-founded and lasted the rest of his life.
Through the years, Howard's thirty-five-acre farm became a fruit farm. Because he was interested in the best varieties of each fruit he grew large collections of apples, pears, peaches, cherries, plums, grapes, and berries, adding new ones as they came to his attention. He wrote many articles on fruit growing and on general subjects for the New England Homestead, the leading agricultural paper of that day. A friend of its editor, he represented the paper as subscription agent and was even offered the position of co-publisher. He became a close friend of S.T. Maynard, the first professor of horticulture of Massachusetts, and of J.G. Holland, editor of the Springfield Republican and one of the founders of Scribner's monthly. Maynard took his classes to Howard's farm, and among the students was S.W. Fletcher, who was in charge of the variety tests at the college where Howard's selections were being tested.
Howard began his strawberry breeding, at least in the 1880's, and later he was joined by his son Everett as a partner in his fruit and farm work-breeding and growing fruit, flowers, and vegetables, and producing and selling flower and vegetable seed. He was an extensive exhibitor at fruit fairs and received more than 2,000 premiums for his exhibits.
In his strawberry breeding Howard used the best varieties and the best of his own seedlings. He is said to have raised and tested over 25,000 seedlings. He even sent seedlings to others to fruit. His crossings were carefully recorded hand pollinations made in a greenhouse. Selections were sent out to be tried by strawberry specialists and experiment stations, and were reported on by the Ontario Station as early as 1894. Two varieties only were named, the Dighton (soon dropped) and the Howard 17. They were selected in 1906 from about 800 seedlings of a cross made in 1904 and were not named and introduced until after Howard died, June 11, 1907. It is said that he had about 1,000 plants of the No. 17 by the spring of 1907. He also named and introduced the Howard apple, Howard Star petunia, Royal Splendor verbena, Lilliput zinnia, and the Bay State tomato. Everett Howard carried on his father's work, sending out the Howard 17 for trial in 1909 and making additional crosses. In 1907, the cross Howard 103 x Howard 17 was made by Everett and about 1,000 seedlings were grown, from which the Howard Supreme was selected and introduced in 1931. It was a large, attractive, high-flavored, very productive variety but was not so popular as it would have been twenty-five years earlier, for it was a pistillate and in 1931 perfect-flowered varieties were preferred. In 1929, the American Pomological Society gave the Marshall Wilder Medal for notable fruit varieties
to A. B. Howard and Son
Premier or Howard 17
Most widely grown of
All strawberries 1908
Albert F. Etter (Fig. 12-5) was born on November 27, 1872, at Shingle Springs, Eldorado County, California, of a family, of eleven boys and one girl. In 1876 the family moved to Coffee Creek and later to Salt River, south of Eureka in Eel River Valley. In 1894 he filed a homestead claim to five hundred acres at Ettersburg and was joined there by his brother, August. In 1924 he married Katharine A. McCormack of New Jersey. He died on November 13, 1950. 2
He lived forty miles west of the railroad and six miles inland from the ocean, just back of the Coast Range in the dry hill country of northern California, at an elevation of about 1,000 feet. He had made Ettersburg his home in 1894, and it was here that he established the fruit breeding farm and nursery which subsequently supplied new genetic material to breeders and growers in this and foreign countries. One of his varieties is now grown in Europe and Australia, and others are in the ancestry of many of America's widely grown varieties.
At thirteen he was interested in breeding dahlias, red currants, and gooseberries. He left school two years later and worked at the home place in Ferndale for the next seven years. At fifteen (1887) he grew his first seedling strawberries, from a cross of Sharpless x Parry. He early obtained and used in his breeding what he called the Peruvian Beach strawberry, said to have been brought to Eureka, California, from Callao, Peru, by a Captain Cousins. As the Peruvian beaches are desert and have no strawberries, this variety probably came from cultivated fields in the interior of Peru or possibly an irrigated field near Lima. Etter (1908) described this as a white, solid-fleshed, fragrant variety with a peculiar pineapple flavor, less drought- and cold-resistant, not fruitful, and less vigorous than the local beach strawberries. Usin g this form of chiloensis pollinated with third generation seedlings from Sharpless x Parry, he fruited his first variety, Rose Ettersburg, in 1895, and introduced it in 1903. Later he used in his crosses selections of chiloensis from various spots (Pigeon Point, Point Arena, Cape Mendocino) along the coast of California.
Etter also used one other species in his breeding: F. ovalis, the native octoploid of western United States, which he called by the names cuneifolia and platypetala, and possibly also at times californica, a name properly applied to a woodland diploid vesca type. He had also the true californica as well as the F. vesca semperflorens of Europe. Both of the latter two were said to have been used in his crosses, but there is no evidence that either was successfully crossed. He also told of using F. chiloensis, or F. duchesne in crosses, but what he actually had was F. nilgerrensis, a diploid. It does not seem to have entered into his varieties. At one time he gave the parentage of Red Cross as Etters 80 x F. duchesne, at another time as Etters 216 x Trebla. The latter seems most likely.
Varieties which Etter reported as entering into his varieties include Sharpless, Crescent, Northfield junior, Dorman, Bederwood, "Michel's Early" (not true, as he records it as pistillate), Fendall, Parry, Wm. Belt, Dunlap, and Chesapeake. He discontinued his strawberry breeding about 1926, but continued his strawberry nursery, his apple and pear breeding, and at least his testing of seedlings for some years. During the early 1920's, many of his varieties and selections were tested at the U.S. Horticultural Station at Glenn Dale, Maryland, and more of them later. Dr. R.E. Clausen described Etter's work for the July, 1915, Journal of Heredity,. Etter, himself, issued a few catalogues and wrote several articles in which he expressed some of his ideas.
Anyone who has seen hybrids of cultivated varieties with the cultivated forms of F. chiloensis from Ecuador, Peru, or Chile, will understand the excitement of a boy of 15 and the concentration of his interest upon strawberry breeding. Crosses of selections of F. chiloensis from the Pacific Coast beaches may give seedling plants of enormous vigor, with the pistillate ones extremely productive of medium-sized, pale, mostly soft berries, but crosses of the South American varieties of F. chiloensis with cultivated varieties give seedlings not only with enormous vigor of plant, but with fruit of large size and a great range of firmness and flavors, some of which are even vile. For the most part, Etter grew seedlings of pistillate-flavored sorts. In crossing, he placed a flower of the male parent on one of the mother parent and kept them in place with cloth tied over both. It is probable that the recorded ancestry of many of his varieties is incorrect. We are quite certain of this in some cases: Ettersburg 121 is reported as Alpine vesca x Cape Mendocino chiloensis, and Trebla is reported as having both the Alpine vesca and the native californica form of vesca in its parentage. Both parentages seem wrong.
We do not know why Etter discontinued his breeding about 1926. We suppose that when he brought in plants from various sources he brought along with them virus and fungus diseases, and insects, such as aphids, which spread virus diseases. Virus diseases were noted at his place in 1932; also what was thought then to be rhizoctonic root disease, but which could well have been red stele root rot, in part at least. Diseases such as these probably puzzled him as they did everyone else, but he was isolated and may have lost some of his enthusiasm because of such troubles.
The Etter variety still grown today is supposed to be Ettersburg 80, called Huxley in Great Britain and on the continent and called E-89 or Ettersburg in Australia. It is much like the original F. x ananassa or Pine varieties -- a large, rather ovate-shaped variety with a bright-red glossy-surface color and a white, smooth-textured, firm flesh. The plant is very vigorous and its leaves large, deep green, and glossy. It is quite tolerant of virus. It is the mother parent of Southland, which was introduced in 1931 by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, but which proved frost-susceptible. Though reported by Etter as [(Rose Ettersburg x californica) x (Rose Ettersburg x Cape Mendocino beach, a F. chiloensis selection)], it probably was not such a cross, although it was apparently derived in part from Rose Ettersburg.
Fairfax is also indirectly derived from Etter's work, for it probably resulted from a cross of Ettersburg 450 (E-450) x Howard 17 or Howard Supreme x E-450. E-450 and E-904 were sweet, high-flavored, rich red, very firm, rather small-fruited varieties (as grown in Maryland) but neither was very vigorous. They were much like Red Chilean in plant and fruit except that the berries were far higher flavored and were rich red to the center.
During the 1920's and early 1930's, the Ettersburg 121 was extensively grown for canning, chiefly in western Oregon. It was a firm-fleshed berry with high flavor and a color that held well in canning. Its cap came off easily, leaving little scar, and was usually left on the plant in picking. It was best adapted to the heavy, well-drained soils in the Willamette Valley. Trebla and Ettersburg 80 were also grown in Oregon and Washington. Etter's varieties were too subject to leaf spot to be of direct value in eastern states. E-445 and E-450 were the most resistant to leaf spot in Maryland.
In the 1937 Yearbook of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (pp. 491-492) the 52 varieties and selections known to have been sent out by Etter by 1937 are listed, along with their parentage and a few of their characteristics. Other of his selections tinder number are known to have been sent out by him.
The value of Etter's work (aside from E-80 and E-121, grown as varieties, and these and other selections which have entered into the parentage of varieties of other breeders) is in the attention it drew to the hybrid vigor and new characters obtainable in crosses of cultivated sorts with F. chiloensis. Georgeson, in Alaska, had obtained some of the same results but his selections, made under the long photoperiods of Alaska, were less usable than those of Etter.
In his writings, Etter emphasized the exquisite flavor of E-450, E-904, Bederarena, Bederarena junior, and Kalicene; the excellent canning quality in E-121 and said to be in Trebla, Redfour, E-450, Red Sugar, and Kalicene; the solid flesh with tough skin of E-450, E-904, and Lnge; the lasting color of flesh of E-121, said to be in Trebla and Lnge also; the ease of capping of E-121, Lnge, Alcatraz, and Trebla; the blossom frost-resistance said to be in Trebla and E-59; alkali resistance said to be in Rose Ettersburg and E-80; the mildew resistance of Fendalcino; and the drought resistance said to be in Red Cross, E-84, and E-500. Etter called attention to the deep root systems which he thought derived from F. chiloensis, and to runners of some F. chiloensis and its hybrids, that lived to the second year.
While ill during 1938, he lost most of his strawberry material and only a few of his varieties and selections are known to still exist. His genetic material now exists in E-80 and E- 1 21 and in varieties of other breeders derived in part from some of his varieties.
| Etter's Varieties | Varieties derived in part from each | |
| Bederarena | Nectarena | |
| Delecto | Simcoe, King, Great Bay, Blaze, Strafford | |
| E-80 | Albritton, Louise, Southland, Jubilee | |
| E-121 | Corvallis, Claribel, Northwest, Guardsman, Sharon, Wisc.-214, Wisc.-251 | |
| E-214 | Elgin, Tupper, Phelps, Merrimack | |
| E-450 | Probably Fairfax and its descendants | |
| E-512 | Wright | |
| Euresko | Redheart, Cal. Institute-Z4 | |
| Fendalcino | Cupertino, Lassen, Cal. Institute-X2, Z4 and Goldsmith | |
| Golden Gate | Black Lee, Canal | |
| Norg | Borden | |
| Red Sugar | Simcoe, Howe |
Some of the germplasm from Etter's varieties is in varieties introduced by D. Boyes of England (see ASHS register # 15). The more important crosses of the writer and associates, Carl Schuster and George Waldo, with Etter's varieties were with Bederarena, Cream, Delecto, E-80, E- 1 2 1, E-450, E-904, Euresko, Kalicene, Lgne, and Trebla (see Jour. Her., Nov. 1934).
Etter also did some apple and plum breeding and, at least, grew, cherry and pear seedlings, and perhaps did some breeding with them. During his later years he gave most of his time to these fruits.
James Wilson, about the middle of the nineteenth century, was a Scottish gardener and nurseryman in Albany, New York. He sowed seed of Hovey, Black Prince, and Ross Phoenix and from the resulting seedlings two years later selected the variety that bears his name, which alone changed the strawberry from a fruit grown for the few by few, into a fruit grown by hundreds of thousands from Florida to Maine and west to California and Washington.
Little is known of James Wilson except that he exhibited his seedling June 22, 1953, at a meeting of the Albany and Rensselaer Horticultural Society where it did not attract much attention. He showed potted plants of it in full fruit the following year. It was then considered outstanding and named Wilson's Albany, later shortened to Wilson. He divided his stock with neighbors in 1854. In 1856, when the demand for plants was great, his nursery had fewer plants than some of the neighbors, he having died in 1855 and left the nursery to his son, John Wilson, who continued to propagate the Wilson for several years. As in the case of Hovey, who made one series of crosses in one year, Wilson grew only one set of seedlings in 1851 and from it obtained his great variety. (See Chapter 9)
Elias W. Durand of Irvington, New Jersey, a suburb of Newark, was an artist who for reasons of health had to seek an out-of-door life. Beginning about 1857 through his friendship with Seth Boyden, a strawberry grower and breeder, he also grew strawberries and made many hand-made crosses to originate varieties that were introduced between 1865 and 1880. His most important variety was New Jersey Scarlet, introduced in 1868, which was the pollen parent of Crescent, and which with Hovey and Howard 17 are the three great ancestors of modern strawberries. So far as can be determined now, New Jersey Scarlet was very similar to Large Early Scarlet but was described by Fletcher as conic instead of roundish oval. It is supposed, but not known, to be a pure Virginian. (See Chapter 9)
Harlow Rockhill (Fig. 12-6), who was born August 28, 1866, in Marshall County, Iowa, and died there March 1, 1944, was chiefly a breeder of strawberries, bush cherries, plums, and peach-plum hybrids, though he worked also with gladiolas, peonies, raspberries, nuts, and pears. He had a broad view of horticulture in general, both of his grandfathers being small nurserymen. His father planted many windbreaks and his mother worked with flowers and plants in the garden. As a boy he cared for a herd of Angus cattle, kept their records, and raised strawberries and melons. He never married. In 1904 he obtained plants of the Pan American everbearer and began his important work with strawberries in 1908 when he crossed the Pan American x Dunlap and selected the Progressive (see Chapter 11). This was introduced in 1912 and was the leading everbearer in North America for a generation. On all counts but that of size, Rockhill considered the Progressive an ideal everbearer for his conditions. It was one of the hardiest of all strawberries; it made runner plants freely; its foliage was resistant to leaf diseases and its fruit was high in flavor. To improve on this, Rockhill started breeding for larger size, and crossed the Early Giant x Progressive in 1918. About 500 seedlings fruited in 1920, from which he selected the Rockhill, which was introduced in 1923. The Rockhill (= Wayzata, Bonanza, and Big Sweet) proved to be as hardy as the Progressive and much larger in size. It was one of the best flavored of all strawberries and attractive in appearance, but it did not make runners as freely as Progressive. It is still grown somewhat. Mr. Rockhill introduced four other everbearers -- Americus (very fine flavor) and Francis, both Pan American x Louis Gauthier, but they were not hardy; and Iowa (Dunlap x Pan American) and Standpat (Pan American x Dunlap), both of which were hardy, but inferior to Progressive. Early Bird, a mixture in the Rockhill when it was introduced, and June Rockhill, a June-fruiting variety (selected in 1932, introduced in 1947) resembling Rockhill, were both Rockhill's varieties. The June Rockhill was considered by Mr. Rockhill to be a non-everbearing sport of the Rockhill (probably, correctly, for its fruit was very high-flavored and similar to the everbearing, and the plant was also similar, except that it produced runners freely and did not build up large crowns as did the Rockhill. The Rockhill had another characteristic developed to the highest degree known: all of its flowers set fruits. Most wild octoploid strawberries have the male and female flower types on separate plants. All flowers of female plants usually set, but the male plants rarely develop fruit even on the primary flower. By crossing and selection of seedlings, productive varieties developing fruit from primary, secondary, and often tertiary flowers of staminate plants have been obtained, but sterility of the later flowers has always persisted. Rockhill is the nearest that we know to the pistillate as regards its high degree of setting.
During his later years, Rockhill centered his interest more and more on stone fruits, crossing Prunus tomentosa, the Manchurian cherry, with the sand cherry, P. besseyi; inter-crossing apricots, peaches, plums, and prunes to obtain new types of plums. He named one red gladiolus the Cherry Red and left one late-flowering peony selection.
Others who obtained great varieties, whether by finding them in or around their fields, or by growing seedlings, were Downer, of Kentucky, who grew seedlings for several years and in 1860 obtained the Charles Downing as well as Downers Prolific, introduced in 1858, and the Kentucky, introduced in 1869; Neunan, of South Carolina, who raised seedlings about 1868 and introduced Neunan; Parmalee, of Connecticut, who found Crescent in 1870 (see Chapter 9); Sharpless, of Pennsylvania, who grew seedlings in 1872 and selected out Sharpless (see Chapter 9 ); Warfield, of Illinois, who found Warfield about 1882; Bubach, of Illinois, who grew seedlings in 1882 and obtained Bubach; Haverland, of Ohio, who grew seedlings in 1882 and introduced Haverland; Hoffman, of South Carolina who found Hoffman in 1884; Gandy, of New Jersey, who grew seedlings in 1885 and obtained Gandy; Cruse, of Kansas, who grew seedlings in 1889 and obtained Aroma; Ewell, of Massachusetts, who found Marshall in 1890 (see Chapter 9); Thompson, of North Carolina, who found Lady Thompson in 1894; Black, of New Jersey, who originated Joe, introduced in 1889; and Gohn, of Virginia, who found Missionary and introduced it in 1906 (see Chapter 10).
After 1900 the notable breeders are, except Haley, of Michigan, entirely those who did systematic breeding over many years. Etter, Cloud, Howard, Reasoner, and Rockhill all continued their breeding work after 1900. Hansen, of South Dakota, and Georgeson, of Alaska, were the first notable breeders of the state and federal experiment stations, Hansen making his first crosses in 1900 and Georgeson his first in 1905 (see Chapter 15). S.W. Fletcher (Fig. 12-7), although not specializing in strawberry breeding, achieved a unique position as the historian of the strawberry in the United States (see Appendix 6).
1. From Illinois Horticultural Society 59:279-328. 1925.
2 Adapted from an article in Fruit Varieties and Horticultural Digest 17:69-72. 1963.