THE SMALL FRUITS OF NEW YORK II 



wrote there was no good source of practical information, for either the 

 amateur or the professional cultivator of small fruits. The Small Fruit 

 Culturist is an accovmt of personal experience and observation extending 

 over a long period of years and immediately became the standard authority 

 in this field of pomology and so continued for a half century. Before the 

 date of Fuller's publication there had been a score or more American books 

 on tree fruits and about as many on the grape, but not until after the 

 middle of the nineteenth century were small fruits considered of siifficient 

 importance to command the attention of an author. The decade in which 

 Fuller's book appeared, i860 to 1870, may be set as the period in which the 

 small fruit industr}"- as now carried on in North America began. 



THE AMERICAN BLACK RASPBERRY 



The domestication of the black raspberry is but begun. It is not yet 

 a hundred years since the first named variety came imder cultivation, 

 and many if not most of the kinds that have been named have been brought 

 in from the wild, while probably few or none are more than two or three 

 generations from wild plants. The black raspberry readily responds to 

 cultivation in varied soils and climates, the plants are easily cared for and 

 very productive, and the product is so well suited for dessert, culinary 

 purposes, drying, and canning that the species has within a himdred years 

 become one of the leading small fruits. Plant breeders are finding that it 

 responds well to the breeder's art; in crosses with other species, and cross- 

 breds between varieties within the species, results are such that the future of 

 the black raspberry is a most promising one. 



Early explorers and settlers on the Atlantic seaboard often mention the 

 black raspbeiTy as one of the delectable wild fruits of the country. It was 

 found from New England to the Carolinas in the borders of woods, as a 

 fringe about fields, around the stumps that dotted the clearings, and came 



Jersey. Soon after Strawberry Culturist appeared, he published Grape Culturist, this in turn to be followed 

 by Small Fruit Culturist, Practical Forestry, Propagation of Plants, and the Nut Culturist. Of his several 

 pomological books, Small Fruit Culturist is probably the best and certainly served more materially in build- 

 ing up a great industrj' than any of his other works. Besides these books he was a constant correspondent 

 to the American Agriculturist, Rural New- Yorker, of which he was part owner for a time, the New York Sun, 

 of which he was agricultural editor for twenty-six years, and of A merican Gardening. He was also editor of 

 the Record of Horticulture which appeared in 1867 and 1868. Besides his interest in pomology, he gave 

 attention to entomology, mineralogy and archeology, and collections in these sciences gave him renown in 

 all of them. He was active in all pomological societies of his state and the coimtry during his active 

 lifetime. Probably no other American has labored longer or more devotedly for pomologj' and horticulture, 

 in both of which he set high ideals in all he did. 



