314 THE EVOLUTION OF OUR NATIVE FRUITS 



fruits, which are sometimes very large, and particu- 

 larly by the few flowers scattered on long stems to- 

 wards the end of the canes. Sometimes the canes 

 have a distinct tendency to root at the tip. The vari- 

 ous pictures (Figs. 66-69) show the features of this 

 curious tribe of berries. 



The progenitor of these loose -cluster berries was 

 the Wilson Early, which was discovered in the wild 

 about 1851, by John Wilson, Burlington, New Jersey. 

 This attracted much attention in New Jersey, but it 

 was too tender for New York and New England. One 

 of the men to bring this variety into great promi- 

 nence was William Parry, a nurseryman and fruit- 

 grower of Parry, New Jersey. Fuller says, in 1867: 

 "It is but little known, except in the vicinity where 

 it originated. Mr. Win. Parry, John S. Collins, Jas. 

 S. Williams, and a few other fruit-growers near Phil- 

 adelphia have quite extensive plantations of this va- 

 riety, and from an examination of the fruit the past 

 season, I conclude that it will prove to be one of the 

 most valuable varieties yet introduced." Parry was 

 one of the few horticulturists who has made any 

 definite attempt to originate or breed new varieties of 

 blackberries. I give his own history of these efforts, 

 as told in "Fifty Years Among Small Fruits:" 



"In 1860 we planted seeds of the New Rochelle, at 

 that time the largest and most attractive blackberry 

 known, but no attention was paid to crossing the 

 blossoms with another variety, and there was no im- 

 provement in the young seedlings, which bore well of 

 large, handsome fruit, very acid and late in ripening. 

 We never disposed of a plant of them, but destroyed 

 them all, as they were not of much value compared with 



