200 SUCCESS WITH SMALL FRUITS. 



have seen the ground covered with the fruit of certain va- 

 rieties, when picking has been delayed. 



All peoples seem to have had a feeling sense of the 

 spines, or thorns of this plant, as may be gathered from its 

 name in different languages ; the Italian term is Raspo, the 

 Scotch Raspis, and the German Kratsberre, or Scratchberry. 



The Greeks traced the raspberry to Mount Ida, and the 

 original bush may have grown in the shadowy glade where 

 the " Shepherd Alexandre," alias Paris, son of Priam, King 

 of Troy, gave his fateful decision in favor of Venus. Juno 

 and Minerva undoubtedly beguiled the time, while the fa- 

 vored goddess presented her claims, by eating the fruit, and 

 perhaps enhanced their competitive beauty by touching 

 their cheeks with an occasional berry. At any rate, the 

 raspberry of the ancients is Rubus Idaus. 



The elder Pliny, who wrote not far from 45 a. d., states 

 that the Greeks distinguished the raspberry bramble by the 

 term '' Idaa,^' and, like so many other Grecian ideas, it has 

 found increasing favor ever since. Mr. A. S. Fuller, one of 

 the best-read authorities on these subjects, writes that " Pal- 

 adius, a Roman agricultural author who flourished in the 

 fourth century, mentions the raspberry as one of the culti- 

 vated fruits of his time." It thus appears that it was pro- 

 moted to the garden long before the strawberry was so 

 honored. 



While it is true that the raspberry in various forms is 

 found wild throughout the continent, and that the ancient 

 gardeners in most instances obtained their supply of plants 

 in the adjacent fields or forests, the late Mr. A. J. Down- 

 ing is of the opinion that the large-fruited foreign varieties 

 are descendants of the ''Mount Ida Bramble," and from 

 that locality were introduced into the gardens of southern 

 Europe. 



