Thomas Laxton began the most extensive and continuous strawberry breeding program ever attempted in the late nineteenth century in England and introduced such famous varieties as the Noble, King of the Earlies, and Royal Sovereign, ancestors of many modern English and European varieties. He used hardy American strawberries to strengthen European varieties. In the 1890's, when his sons took over his work, Laxton told of raising at least 10,000 seedlings in his thirty-two years of breeding work.