1 86 THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 



suspected down to the most recent centuries, has during the 

 period in which it has been known been utilized to obtain 

 an equal perfection in type and a much larger number of 

 species than has hitherto been brought ' about in the animal 

 world. The first published information on plant gender was 

 by Camerarius in 1692, and it was not till twenty years later 

 that Thomas Fairchild brought about the first recognized 

 hybrid by crossing a carnation with a sweet william. From 

 that time on studies and experiments in plant life were stead- 

 ily continued, but the last fifty years brought forth with an 

 ever-increasing momentum more results than all previous time, 

 so that to-day we are in a tide of achievements which promises 

 to spread over all the face of the earth, causing it to fructify 

 like Egypt after the annual inundations of the Nile. 



The white blackberry is precisely like the well-developed 

 blackberries now to be found in our markets except that it is, 

 as its name implies, white in color. The one fruit is no bet- 

 ter than the other, though the white berry is certainly more 

 pleasing to the eye. Of more importance than the color is 

 the fact that the thorns with which the ordinary blackberry 

 and raspberry stalks are covered, and which so interfere with 

 the pleasure and rapidity of gathering the fruit, are in process 

 of suppression. Indeed, it is now certain that the elimination 

 of the briars from the stalks of the whole species is an abso- 

 lutely feasible proposition, and thornless rose and berry bushes 

 are very soon to become so common as to excite no comment. 



The fruit industry of Florida has in times past frequently 

 suffered from spells of severe cold, the disastrous freezes of 

 1894-5 killing or severely injuring nearly every tree in the 

 state and bringing a shocking and irreparable ruin upon very 

 many of her citizens. Out of the efforts of Webber and 



