lO THE SMALL FRUITS OF NEW YORK 



Eight of Prince's varieties were described by Downing; four were new. 

 Fotirteen of the varieties in Prince's book were European; four American. 

 Eleven of Downing' s reds seem to be Old World sorts; only one certainly 

 came from the New World. 



In a history of the red raspberry in America tribute should be paid 

 to the work of Dr. William D. Brinckle ^ who devoted many years in the 

 middle of the last centiiry to improving this fruit. His efforts were chiefly 

 with Rubiis idaeus and at first thought one thinks that he might have served 

 pomology better had he sought to improve the hardier and more vigorous 

 native red; yet in his use of Idaeus he established a standard of high 

 quality to be found only in the European red and so forced breeders to keep 

 high quality in mind in domesticating the native species. 



Another impetus was given the raspberry industry by the publica- 

 tion, in 1867, of Andrew S. Fuller's Small Fruit Ctdturist. Until Fuller^ 



' Dr. William Draper BrinckM, originator of many red raspberries, strawberries, and of two pears, was 

 one of the most prominent American pomologists in the middle of the last century. He was bom in 

 Delaware in 1799, and following in his father's footsteps began the practice of medicine at the early age of 

 twenty-one in Wilmington, but to find a larger field for his profession moved to Philadelphia in 1825, 

 where he lived the remainder of a busy life in the vocation of medicine and the avocation of pomology. 

 During his last few years a physical affliction made him an invalid and cut short his life; he died in 1 863 in 

 his sixty-fourth j'ear. Dr. Brinckl^'s most important work in pomology was the amelioration of the 

 strawberry and the red raspberry. Beginning with the strawberry, which he hybridized in a little room 

 in his Philadelphia home, he bred and introduced several fine varieties, of which, perhaps, Gushing was the 

 most notable. Turning his attention next to red raspberries, he produced the Col. Wilder, Cope, Gushing, 

 and Orange, as his finest sorts, of which for many years Orange was a standard commercial variety and is 

 still the acme in quality. Wilmington and Catherine Gardette pears were his chief contributions to the 

 tree fruits. For a quarter of a century. Dr. Brinckle was a leader in American pomology, during which 

 time he served terms as president and vice-president of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society and as 

 vice-president of the American Pomological Society. In i860 he was editor of Hoffy's Norlh American 

 Pomologist, a most admirable pomological periodical with colored plates. His life was an eminently useful 

 one in medicine and pomology, besides which he was distinguished as a man of great culture and refinement 

 and was beloved by a wide circle of friends in private life, medicine, and pomologj'. 



2 Andrew S. Fuller, pomologist, scientist, and pomological writer, was bom in Utica, New York, 

 August 3, 1828, and died May 4, 1896, at Ridgewood, New Jersey, Fuller began work at an early age as 

 a carpenter and builder of greenhouses. In Milwaiikee, Wisconsin, he built a small greenhouse on a city 

 lot and in it began the work which soon brought him to the attention of lovers of plants and fruits, with 

 such renown that William R. Prince, Flushing, Long Island, then a leading nurseryman in America, 

 offered him the management of his greenhouse. This position he accepted in 1 855, but remained with Prince 

 only two years, leaving to engage for himself in small fruit culture at Brool-djoi, New York. He soon 

 specialized in breeding strawberries, and out of thousands of seedlings selected some dozen or more which 

 he named. The best one of these was Col. Ellsworth, an excellent sort, plants of which to the number of 

 300,000 were sent out by the New York Tribune as premiums to subscribers. His first book, written at 

 about this time, was the Strawberry Culturist. In the early sixties he moved to Ridgewood, New Jersey, 

 where he planned and planted home grounds that soon became a botanical garden as he grew almost every 

 species and variety of ornamental trees, shrubs, small fruits, and nuts which could be made to grow in New 



