THE SMALL FRUITS OF NEW YORK 



15 



for a few years at least, and propagated any black raspberry. The plants 

 he sold were distributed under several names but for ten years chiefly 

 as Doohttle's Improved Black Cap. Leander Joslyn, Phelps, New York, 

 a neighbor of Doolittle, had found a superior sort growing wild which 

 Doolittle propagated and sold as Joslyn's Black Cap. Several other 

 names to be given in the synonymy of Doolittle, in the chapter on varieties, 

 were also used for this berry, but in September, i860, the American Pomo- 

 logical Society formally bestowed the name Doolittle Raspberry on one of 

 the sorts sent out by Doolittle and as such it was grown for some forty or 

 fifty years. 



Other named varieties of blackcaps now began to appear, but the popu- 

 larity of the fruit increased slowly. Wild plants supplied the country, and 

 city people preferred the red sorts. Besides, there were no facilities for 

 shipping and marketing. Bramble fruits, and least of all this one, did 

 not begin to receive attention until the eighties of the last centiiry when 

 in western New York dried blackcaps became an article of commerce and 

 several thousand acres were planted to this fruit. Later, black raspberries 

 took a place in the markets with the reds ; they came in demand for home 

 plantations; improved varieties were introduced from year to year; and the 

 black raspberry industry may be said to have been established. 



HYBRID RASPBERRIES 



Neither botanist nor pomologist could mistake either of the two 

 red raspberries or the black raspberry for any other bramble fruit. There 

 is a third group of varieties under cultivation, however, which both 

 botanists and pomologists have long been puzzled to place. These are 

 the sorts rather misleadingly known as the purple-cane raspberries. 



Prince, in his Pomological Manual, 1832, describes two varieties 

 undoubtedly of this group, one of which he puts in " i?. Americanus" and 

 the other in "i?. Perms ylvanicus." Fuller, in his Small Fruit Culturist, 

 1867, supposes them " to belong to the same species as the common black- 

 cap," and then says " but as they have a few characteristics in common, 

 which are not found in the wild blackberry, nor in any other species, I 

 have placed them in a list by themselves." To this group he gave the 

 name " Purple-canes," although there had long been a variety called the 

 Pvirple Cane. This old Purple Cane he selected as the type of the group 

 which he characterizes as foUows:^ " The principal difference between the 



1 Fuller, A. S. Sm. Fr. Cult. 146. 1867. 



