478 Transactions of the 



THE CULTURE OF SMALL FRUIT. 



BY. E. F. AIKEN. 



This is a subject that is comparatively new to all of us, although rapid 

 strides have been made within the past ten years in the propagation and 

 dissemination of new and valuable sorts of all the small fruits. There is 

 a great difference of opinion among growers of these fruits concerning 

 the best mode of propagation, cultivation, and pruning, and the adaptation 

 of the different sorts to the various soils and. locations; and it may be 

 truly said, we have hardly begun to cultivate them understandingly. 

 We have only to look back to a period within our own memory to 

 ascertain about all that has been clone in the artificial improvement of 

 the small fruits. Question any of our fruit growers concerning the fruits 

 to be found on our market-stands thirty years ago, and they will tell us 

 that the fine sorts of cultivated berries to be found so plentiful during 

 their season, nowadays, were then unknown. There were no Jucunda, 

 Trionphe De Gand and Wilson strawberries, no Wilson's Early or Kittat- 

 ting blackberries, no Clarke, Davidson, Thornless, and Mammoth Cluster 

 raspberries, and numerous other sorts as valuable, that might be men- 

 tioned, which have been brought from a wild state to their present con- 

 dition of excellence by hybridizing and other modes of propagation 

 known to our skillful horticulturists. Our markets, in those days, were 

 wholly supplied with such small fruits as the woods and uncultivated 

 fields could produce; nature, without the assistance of man, supplied 

 them in such quantity and quality as to satisfy the demand for the then 

 uncultivated tastes of the people. The su|)ply was limited, the demand 

 was light. I will venture to say there is not one of us but that in recall- 

 ing the pleasant associations of our boyhood days, can recall none more 

 vividly than the holiday excursions after strawberries, raspberries, and 

 blackberries, regardless of the two or three miles tramp through the 

 sweltering sun, rambling over the fields, gathering, perhaps, from two 

 to four quarts after a hard day's work, including innumerable scratches 

 and falls. What a change has been in these fruits since those days. 

 The increase of population has been such that such a source of supply 

 was not equal to the demand. Hence came the necessity for our horti- 

 culturists to make use of their science, and assist nature to unfold some 

 of her most useful and valuable fruits, which had remained hidden until 

 touched by their skillful hand. 



Through the scientific management of our horticulturists, we have 

 now many new and better varieties of all our small fruits in general 

 cultivation, while under the same skillful management more are being 

 added to the list every year. Originators of these new sorts are stimu- 

 lated to great exertion by their knowledge of what has been accom- 

 plished, knowing, too, that if successful in bringing out a new variety 

 of great merit, they will be well rewarded for their labors. 



The market stands of our cities are now loaded with the choicest sorts 



