Raspberries Species, History -, Propagation, Etc. 159 



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 

 favored 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 

 Idceus. 



The elder Pliny, who wrote not far from 45 A. D., states that the Greeks 

 distinguished the raspberry bramble by the term " Idcza" 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 

 " Paladius, a Roman agricultural author, who flourished in the fourth 

 century, mentions the raspberry as one of the cultivated fruits of his time.'* 

 It thus appears that it was promoted to the garden long before the straw- 

 berry 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. Downing 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. 



In America, two well-known and distinct species are enriching our 

 gardens and gracing our tables with their healthful fruit. We will first 

 name R. Strigosus, or the wild red raspberry, almost as dear to our memory 

 as the wild strawberry. It grows best along the edge of woodlands and in 

 half-shadowy places that seem equally adapted to lovers' rambles. In just 

 such a nook as we perhaps recall, the artist has portrayed a youth who, with 

 a cluster of the ruby fruit, is heightening the effect of love's shy signals. 

 The crimson, melting berry is the type of their present experience. The 

 fates forbid that the Scotch term, Raspis, should suggest what is to come \ 



Nature, too, in a kindly mood, seems to have scattered the seeds of this 

 fruit along the road-side, thus fringing the highway in dusty, hot July with 

 ambrosial food. 



Professor Gray thus describes the native red species : " R. Strigosus, 

 Wild Red R. Common, especially North ; from two to three feet high ; 



