THE SMALL FRUITS OF NEW YORK 183 



seems to have been made by Captain Josiah Lovett' of Beverly, Massa- 

 chusetts. Under date of May 15, 1850, he tells his experience to the readers 

 of the Magazine of Horticulture. His letter to the editor reads: — 



" Dear Sir, — Always having been particularly fond of the smaller 

 fruits, after preparing my grounds, and setting out a variety of straw- 

 berries and raspberries, about the year 1835, I turned my attention to the 

 cultivation of the high-bush blackberry of our woods. At the season of 

 ripening, I, for several years in succession, travelled through the woods of 

 Beverly, Wenham, and Manchester, in the county of Essex, in search of 

 such bushes as bore the largest and best berries; having noticed the most 

 conspicuous in passing, I placed a stake by, or tied a string upon, each of 

 them, and, returning early in the autumn, or on the following spring, I 

 took up all the marked bushes and removed them to my own garden, or 

 cultivated grounds; this experiment I followed for several years in succession, 

 but in all cases made a very signal failure in the production of any fruit 

 worthy of garden culture, and, I think, in 1840, gave up all hope of ever 

 being able to grow this berry successfully. Several of my friends were no 

 more fortunate in attempting to raise good fruit from canes procured from 

 the woods of New Hampshire, and the trial was, for the time being, aban- 

 doned altogether. A year or two later, a cultivator from Dorchester 

 exhibited some very fine fruit of the blackberry, at the rooms of the Massa- 

 chusetts Horticultural Society, in Boston, and I im.mediately procxired from 

 him a few bushes, and, from that time to the present, I have succeeded 

 in producing good fruit from this stock. I have now in cvdtivation several 

 seedlings raised from this Dorchester stock that have produced fine fruit, 

 but as yet, none better than the original, and the latter are no larger or 

 finer than I have gathered, with my own hands, from the wild bushes in 

 the woods in New Hampshire, or this vicinity. The variety I now raise 

 is the one I originally received from Dorchester, and this is the only one I 

 have seen cultivated successfully. 



" I have planted the bushes in various positions on my grovmds, and 

 they have uniformly done well; but I think the largest berries and best 

 crops have been produced on patches near the street, having the wash 

 from the road passing over them. My ground is a strong loam, inclining 

 to clay, over a subsoil of yellow stiff clay. I have given them no particular 

 care, spreading a light coat of stable or pig-pen manure over them once a 

 season, usually in the autumn. In regard to pnming, I have sometimes 

 cut the tops off of the longest canes, so as to make them stand without 

 stakes, and occasionally have staked them up; but I have found those left 

 to trail on or near the ground have done best, and I now imiformly allow 

 them to grow in this manner." 



' " On the Cultivation of the High-bush Blackberry; with a Notice of the best Wash for Fruit Trees. 

 By Capt. Josiah Lovett. Beverly, Mass." Mag. Horl. 16:261. 1850. 



