Strawberry-growing

1917

Truby King Collection SB 385 FL21

New York: The Macmillan Company

Stevenson Whitcomb Fletcher (1875-1971) was Professor of Horticulture at Pennsylvania State University from 1917 to 1945. In his preface to Strawberry-growing, Fletcher claims the strawberry is ‘distinctively North American’ and most of the almost 2000 varieties ‘sprang from species found only in the Americas’. However, wild strawberries were eaten in the Ancient Roman world, and the garden variety - Fragaria ananassa, a member of the Rose family - were first cultivated in France in the 1800s. Fletcher offers advice on obtaining ideal soils, planting, manuring, irrigation, mulching, pollination, packing, marketing and the propagation of strawberries. Again Truby has taken his pencil to this volume.