338 THE EVOLUTION OF OUR NATIVE FKU1TS 



has found this variety more profitable as a market 

 fruit than any blackberries he has grown." The 

 Bartel dewberry is not generally known, even now ; 

 but a few persons grow it with much satisfaction. 



All this history of the Bartel dewberry is simple 

 enough, as one reads it, but some weeks of labor were 

 consumed in discovering the facts. This is but another 

 illustration of the fact that few useful records are 

 made of plant variation and of horticultural history. 

 Even the proper spelling of the name was not known 

 until this history was recorded in the Cornell Bulletin, 

 seven years ago. It was variously written Bartle, 

 Bartles', Bartell and Bartells', but I have the evidence 

 of a neighbor of the introducer, who is now dead, 

 that he spelled his name Bartel. 



The reader may be interested to know how this 

 history was obtained. In the first place, it may be 

 said that there was no record of the origin of the 

 variety to be found in the many books or journals 

 to which the writer had access. He then wrote to 

 Mr. Adams and Mr. Stone, whose success with this 

 dewberry has been mentioned, asking where they 

 obtained the variety. One of them replied that he 

 obtained it years before as a premium to Purdy's 

 "Small -Fruit Recorder," a periodical which had dis- 

 continued publication. The writer had no file of this 

 journal ; but the editor is living, and he therefore 

 wrote him for information. The editor replied that 

 the correspondent was evidently mistaken, that he 

 had not offered the berry as a premium, to the 

 best of his memory, and that he knew nothing of it. 

 Yet the correspondent was positive in reasserting 

 his statements, and, thinking that the lapse of time 



