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Page 28
The wide and favorable consideration given to small fruits clearly
marks one of the changes in the world's history. This change may
seem trifling indeed to the dignified chroniclers of kings and
queens and others of high descent--great descent, it may be added,
remembering the moral depths attained; but to those who care for
the welfare of the people, it is a mutation of no slight interest.
I am glad to think, as has been shown in a recent novel, that
Lucrezia Borgia was not so black as she has been painted; yet in
the early days of June and July, when strawberries and raspberries
are ripening, I fancy that most of us can dismiss her and her kin
from mind as we observe Nature's alchemy in our gardens. When we
think of the luscious, health-imparting fruits which will grace
millions of tables, and remember that until recent years they were
conspicuous only by their absence, we may not slightingly estimate
a great change for the better. Once these fruits were wildings
which the vast majority of our forefathers shared sparingly with
the birds. Often still, unless we are careful, our share will be
small indeed; for the unperverted taste of the birds discovered
from the first what men have been so slow to learn--that the ruby-
like berries are the gems best worth seeking. The world is
certainly progressing toward physical redemption when even the
Irish laborer abridges his cabbage-patch for the sake of small
fruits--food which a dainty Ariel could not despise.
We have said that raspberries thrive in partial shade; and
therefore some advice in regard to them naturally follows our
consideration of trees. Because the raspberry is not so exacting
as are many other products of the garden, it does not follow that
it should be marked out for neglect. As it is treated on many
places, the only wonder is that even the bushes survive. Like many
who try to do their best in adversity, it makes the most of what
people term "a chance to get ahead."
Moreover, the raspberry is perhaps as often injured by mistaken
kindness as by neglect. If we can imagine it speaking for itself,
it would say: "It is not much that I want, but in the name of
common-sense and nature give me just what I do want; then you may
pick at me to your heart's content."
The first need of the raspberry is a well-drained but not a very
dry, light soil. Yet such is its adaptability that certain
varieties can be grown on any land which will produce a burdock or
a mullien-stalk. In fact, this question of variety chiefly
determines our chances of success and the nature of our treatment
of the fruit. The reader, at the start, should be enabled to
distinguish the three classes of raspberries grown in this
country.
As was true of grapes, our fathers first endeavored to supply
their gardens from foreign nurseries, neglecting the wild species
with which our woods and roadsides abounded. The raspberry of
Europe (Rubus idaeus) has been developed, and in many instances
enfeebled, by ages of cultivation. Nevertheless, few other fruits
have shown equal power to adapt themselves to our soil and
climate, and we have obtained from foreign sources many valuable
kinds--as, for instance, the Antwerp, which for weeks together
annually taxed the carrying power of Hudson River steamers. In
quality these foreign kinds have never been surpassed; but almost
invariably they have proved tender and fastidious, thriving well
in some localities, and failing utterly (except under the most
skilful care) in others. The frosts of the North killed them in
winter, and Southern suns shrivelled their foliage in summer.
Therefore they were not raspberries for the million, but for those
who resided in favored regions, and were willing to bestow upon
them much care and high culture.
Eventually another process began, taking place either by chance or
under the skilful manipulation of the gardener--that of
hybridizing, or crossing these foreign varieties with our hardier
native species. The best results have been attained more
frequently, I think, by chance; that is, the bees, which get more
honey from the raspberry than from most other plants, carried the
pollen from a native flower to the blossom of the garden exotic.
The seeds of the fruit eventually produced were endowed with
characteristics of both the foreign and native strains.
Occasionally these seeds fell where they had a chance to grow, and
so produced a fortuitous seedling plant which soon matured into a
bearing bush, differing from, both of its parents, and not
infrequently surpassing both in good qualities. Some one
horticulturally inclined having observed the unusually fine fruit
on the chance plant, and believing that it is a good plan to help
the fittest to survive, marked the bush, and in the autumn
transferred it to his garden. It speedily propagated itself by
suckers, or young sprouts from the roots, and he had plants to
sell or give away. Such, I believe, was the history of the
Cuthbert--named after the gentleman who found it, and now probably
the favorite raspberry of America.
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