THE SMALL FRUITS OF NEW YORK 5 



that true varietal names were yet in use for any of the raspberries. Hitt 

 writes: " The rasberry plant cannot properly be called a fniit-tree, yet as 

 the fruit is valuable, I shall give my method of planting, dressing, &c. 

 I am only acquainted with four kinds, except the flowering sort, viz. the 

 common small red, and white; the other two sorts are much larger, of the 

 same colour, and are called rombullions; the former has the richest flavour, 

 but in dry seasons they are apt to wither if they are planted upon sand or 

 gi-avelly land, but will bear well on loam or clay, that is not too wet." 



Thomas Mawe and John Abercrombie,^ great authorities on garden- 

 ing in the last haK of the eighteenth century, wrote the Universal Gardener 

 and Botanist; or a General Dictionary of Gardening and Botany. The book 

 quite lives up to the pretentious title, and one may well expect that all 

 of the varieties of raspberries known would be listed. Assuming that 

 such is the case, the number of sorts at this late date in pomological history, 

 1778, is but foior, as follows: "Varieties. Common red Raspberry — 

 white-fruited Raspberry — twice-bearing red, and white Raspberrv^ pro- 

 ducing the first crop of finiit in Jvily, and the second in September; and is 

 esteemed a curiosity • — smooth Raspberry, the stalks, &c. being devoid of 

 armature." This quotation is of particular interest as it contains an early 

 if not the first reference to double-cropping raspberries. 



The next notice of raspberries in England worth recording is foimd 

 in the second edition of George Brookshaw's Pomona Brittanica, 1817, in 

 which three varieties are named and are illustrated in a very good colored 

 plate. The three varieties are " Red and White Antwerp, and the Common 

 Raspberries." In describing the White Antwerp Brookshaw condemns 

 all raspberries with faint praise. He says: " Raspberries not being so 

 rich in their flavor as strawberries, are not much eaten alone; their smell 

 is more grateful than their taste." 



A little later, 1823, in his Horticidtural Repository, Brookshaw- 

 illustrates only the Red and White Antwerps but gives this interesting 

 account of the raspberry: 



" The Raspberry was anciently called Raspisberry, and, in some coun- 

 tries, Hind-berry; it is a native of many parts of Europe, being foimd in 

 rocky movmtains, moist situations, woods and hedges; the Red sort is 

 indigenous to England, growing wild in some parts of the country. The 

 fruit is grateful to most palates as Nature presents it, but the flavour is 



• Mawe-Abercrombie Vniv. Card. Bot. 1778. 

 ' Brookshaw, George Horl. Reposit. 1:2$. 1823. 



