AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 143 



We visited Geo. Seymour's place, atNorwalk, Conn., and found some five 

 acres of ground covered with tliis variety of blackberry, wliicli I have no 

 hesitancy about pronouncing a distinct variety, and altogether superior to 

 any other ever cultivated or found growing wild. In fact, this was found 

 growing wild in a field at New Rochelle, some fifteen years ago, and trans- 

 planted to the garden of » Mr. Secor, where it was found, after several 

 years' experience, to bear cultivation, much better than any other wild va- 

 riety ever tried. Its superior fruit soon attracted attention, and Mr. Sey- 

 mour, seeing the advantage to be derived from propagation and sale of the 

 plants, set himself at work to produce them by all the arts known to a 

 practical and experienced nurserymen. One of the results was a sale of 

 35,000 plants last year, and his sales this year will be much larger if he 

 has plants enough to fill his orders. It has been more an object to sell 

 plants than grow fruit for market, but the production has been very large 

 and price very remunerating. 



Product per acre. — I made a careful examination of the first half acre 

 planted, and found ten rows, of thirty-two bunches each, making 320 roots, 

 as originally set upon the half acre. The lowest estimate of any of the 

 gentlemen present was five quarts of berries to a bunch of roots. That 

 would make five bushels to the row, and fifty bushels on the half acre. 

 Knowing that it takes only an average of 120 berries to a quart, and from 

 rough calculation of numbers, I am satisfied the average will be eight 

 quarts to the bunch. In conversation with Mr. Lawton on Saturday last, 

 while in his blackberry garden, he confirms my opinion of the yield, which 

 would give eighty bushels to the half acre. But let us take the lowest 

 estimate, one hundred bushels per acre, and we have a crop worth eight 

 hundred dollars, at the present wholesale price of twenty-five cents a quart. 

 And even at only one-fourth the present price, we have $200 per acre. 



"Ah ! but what if everybody goes to raising blackberries ? then the 

 market will be glutted, and we cannot sell them at all." 



Heaven hasten that day — the day when the poor as well as the rich can 

 enjoy an abundance of this delicious, health-preserving fruit — the day when 

 the cultivators of it will find the market glutted, and the fruit unsaleable 

 at sixpence a quart. When that time comes we shall have cheap black- 

 berry wine. The juice of eighty quarts of these berries, mixed with water, 

 and ninety pounds of refined sugar, will make a barrel of wine, such as I 

 tasted at Mr. Seymour's, and such as does and will sell readily at $2 a 

 gallon. But at a wholesale price of $1 it will still pay $200 for an acre 

 of the berries, and for the sugar and for making, and afford a large profit 

 upon the wine-making business. 



Items of cost of wine. 



2| bushels (80 quarts) of berries, for a barrel, at 6|c., $5 00 



90 pounds of sugar, at 11 gC, 10 35 



Crushing and mixing, 65 



Cost per barrel, $16 00 



