120 BUSH-FRUITS 



USES ' 



Dried blackberries are nearly always quoted in mar- 

 ket, yet, so far as I have been able to learn,* none 

 are grown for that purpose, the supply coming almost 

 wholly from the South, where the wild berries are 

 gathered and are dried in the sun. They are usually 

 poor in quality, and quoted at a price which would 

 render it unprofitable to dry them if there were a 

 market for fresh fruit. In order to learn something of 

 their adaptability for this purpose, eight well -filled 

 quart baskets just as we were selling them fresh, were 

 taken for experiment. They were made to correspond 

 in weight, so that each quart, with the basket, weighed 

 one and one -half pounds. Deducting the weight of the 

 baskets left five pounds ten and one -half ounces of 

 * fruit in each of two lots of four quarts. Granulated 

 sugar was freely sprinkled over one lot. Four ounces 

 of sugar was thus used, one ounce to each quart, 

 making the weight of this lot plus the sugar five 

 pounds fourteen and one -half ounces. Both lots were 

 put in the greenhouse to dry August 3, on wire 

 screens, and covered with mosquito netting to keep 

 away the flies. After one or two days of sunshine, 

 there came several cloudy ones, and the berries be- 

 gan to mold, so that the netting had to be removed. 

 Those treated with sugar molded less than the others, 

 and stuck to the screens less in drying. August 12 

 both lots were taken up and weighed. They appeared 



*If red W. Card, Bull. 57, Cornell Exp. Sta. 



