THE CANADIAK HORTICULTURIST. 



43 



ti-ee of beauty than by any other, as, 

 when your roots have plenty of fibrous 

 roots, and are in vigorous liealth, three 

 years will give you nice trees. 



THE CUTHBERT RASPBERRY — ITS 

 MERITS AND DEMERITS. 



BY T. C. ROBINSON, OWEN SOUND. 



No fruit seems to have been so well 

 received, and so nearly to have mono- 

 ^polized the attention given by fruit 

 growers to its class of late years, as the 

 Cuthbert with our American neigh- 

 bora ; and now that it is putting in an . 

 appearance on this side of the line, a 

 few words of critical description may 

 be in order. 



It is not a fruit of unqualified ex> 

 cellence any more than any of our 

 choicest apples or plums or pears, 

 though the almost unqualified praise 

 it has met with would perhaps lead us 

 to think so. The truth is, we needed 

 a good raspberry that would grow any- 

 where, and both eat and sell well, 

 more than any other kind of fruit ex- 

 cept perhaps the gooseberry, that so 

 many points of excellence combined in 

 this raspberry fully account for its 

 popularity without assuming for it per- 

 fection, as many seem inclined. We 

 have had, it is true, raspberries of fine 

 size and delicious flavor, like Clarke 

 and Kne vet's Giant, but to a lack of 

 hardiness has been joined a softness 

 which unfitted them: for market uses. 

 The grand old Franconia, so good for 

 both market and home use, would not 

 grow large enough to bear a paying 

 crop on light soils, -and would grow so 

 large and soft on heavy soils as to win- 

 ter-kill in most parts of the country. 

 Philadelphia, the acme of productive- 

 ness, and sufliciently hardy, was too 

 soft and dark-colored and poor-flavored j 

 to stand the test ; and so on down the I 

 list, pausing at that model of raspberry j 

 hardine.S8, the Turner, to note- that ' 



its sweetness, hardiness and vigorous 

 growth, and adaptability to light soils, 

 do not quite make up for a slight lack 

 of firmness, size, and uniformity of 

 ripening, necessary to a first-class mar- 

 ket variety, while its earliness leaves a 

 great want still for a good late variety. 

 Just here the Cuthbert steps in, and 

 hence its welcome. Its size is all that 

 can reasonably be asked — not mon 

 strous, you know, as some representa- 

 tions make it appear, unless extra cul- 

 tivation is given, when it no doubt can- 

 be grown over an inch in longest diam - 

 eter ; but with fair market culture, it 

 will run I to I of an inch by the quart. 

 In shape it is much longer than the 

 raspberries we have been used to — a 

 cone, more pointedly conical than even 

 Turner, which is quite long for a I'asp- 

 berry. It seems about as firm as Fran- 

 conia, that is, as firm as a market rasp- 

 berry needs to be ; and its color is rich 

 enough and bright enough, as grown 

 with me, to satisfy the most exacting. 

 How it will grow on poor, light land I 

 cannot say, as I only have it on good 

 land, or on poor, light land, so close to 

 a richer, heavier strip that the roots 

 have made themselves at home in the 

 good soil on one side of the plant ; and 

 right here let me say that this question 

 of its behavior on poor soils is one to 

 which I do not propose to extend my 

 experience. I have had enough of 

 fruit growing on land not fit to grow 

 even white beans, and think too highly 

 of the Cuthbert to subject it to such a 

 test. I have Franconias of three yeai-s' 

 growth on such land that after the dis- 

 couragement of last June's frost (clip 

 ping foliage, not blossoms), refused in 

 such a dry season to give one c^uart to 

 every twenty or thirty plants, even 

 with the stimulus of a good mulch of 

 manure. No doubt n\any fruit growei-n 

 have just such land, and for their en- 

 coui'agement may serve the experience, 

 of American fruit growers who clainv 



