14 THE SMALL FRUITS OF NEW YORK 



into American gardens. It is a double-cropping sort and ctiriously enough 

 had no great value for the normal fruiting season, since the plants were 

 so vmproductive, and the berries so small and poor in quality that in compe- 

 tition with summer-bearing sorts introduced later it quickly disappeared. 

 Its introducer, Nicholas Longworth,' as before stated, gives the following 

 history of the variety: " When driven into the interior of the state by the 

 cholera, in September and October of 1832, I foimd a raspberry in full 

 bearing, a native of our state, and the only everbearing raspberry I have 

 ever met with. I introduced it the same winter into my garden, and it is 

 now cultivated by me in preference to all others, and my table is supplied 

 from the beginning of Jime till frost." 



Longworth at this time was the greatest pomological authority west 

 of the Atlantic seaboard and the chief American authority on grapes. 

 He now tried to introduce his Ohio Everbearing by distributing plants to 

 friends, writing articles about it to American and English magazines, 

 and by cultivating it commercially at Cincinnati. Yet with all his perse- 

 verance, backed by his pomological prestige, it scarcely caused a ripple in 

 the pomology of the times. Not imtil the sixth meeting of the American 

 Pomological Society, held in 1856, was it ever brought up for discussion. 

 Although introduced twenty-four years previously, eastern fruit growers 

 had scarcely heard of it and there was confusion both as to its identity and 

 origin. At this time, not more than three or four black raspberries had 

 been named. Improvement of the blackcap had scarcely begun in the 

 middle of the nineteenth century. 



The real start in the domestication of the black raspberry was made in 

 1850, not by the introduction of a superior fruit but by the discovery of 

 a better method of propagation than had hitherto been known. The red 

 raspberry, then under cultivation in most commtinities, is propagated by 

 suckers. The black raspberry throws no suckers and is propagated but 

 slowly and laboriously, if at all, by any method of division. As all now 

 know, its tips bend over in the autumn and take root. H. H. Doolittle, 

 Oaks Comers, New York, almost in sight of where these words are being 

 written, adopted the method of nature in growing the black raspberry, 

 and was so successful that the commercial cultivation of this fruit may be 

 said to have begun with his discovery. 



Doolittle, it appears, was much more concerned about his method of 

 propagation than over any particular variety. He went to the fields, 



'Bailey, L.H. Ev. Nat. Fruits 276. 1898. 



