EARLY HISTORY 301 



other fruits, we are far from attaining perfection. 

 We have no ideal variety. If we demand the best in 

 point of hardiness, we must yield in size and quality; 

 if delicacy of flavor is the desideratum, something else 

 will be deficient. Yet to stand by a well -grown row 

 of Early Cluster, for example, to see its glistening 

 sprays of glossy black hanging in such graceful pro- 

 fusion, to gather its magnificent berries and to test 

 their sweet and melting quality, just like those finest 

 and ripest ones you used now and then to chance 

 upon in some wooded nook which everybody else had 

 missed, is to forget for the time being that there is 

 anything further to be desired in a blackberry. Still, 

 we have reason to hope that the achievements of this 

 energetic and vigorous pomological youth are but an 

 omen of what is yet to come." 



The blackberry is not mentioned by William Prince 

 in his "Treatise on Horticulture," published in 1828, 

 nor in his son's "Pomological Manual," either in the 

 first edition, 1831, or in the second, 1832. Kenrick, 

 in "New American Orchardist," 1833, mentions the 

 blackberry as being worthy of cultivation, and remarks 

 that plants were then occasionally transplanted to gar- 

 dens. Speaking of the wild "bush blackberry," he 

 says: "This plant thrives in a rich, moist, sandy 

 loam, and is often cultivated in gardens, where its 

 fruit is much improved in size, and its crops very 

 abundant." "It is singular," he says, "that a fruit so 

 productive as the tall blackberry should be so little 

 cultivated." He also speaks of the "trailing black- 

 berry," and the "white -fruited bramble." William 

 Parry, of New Jersey, says that about 1835 he 

 "planted a patch of blackberries for market, and 



