486 BUSH-FRUITS 



custom of eating the berries as a sauce with buffalo meat. It has 

 also been known as rabbit berry and blood berry, while Crozier 

 states* that it has even been improperly called cornelian cherry. 

 A writer in the Gardener's Monthlyf speaks of it as the Nebraska 

 currant. 



The buffalo berry has enjoyed the distinction of remaining a 

 new fruit for a very long time. In 1841 William Oakes, in dis- 

 cussing the advance of spring in eastern Massachusetts, mentions 

 the buffalo berry, and incidentally states that it was then fre- 

 quently cultivated. This was the same year that our earliest cul- 

 tivated blackberry made its first appearance on the exhibition 

 tables of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society j and some years 

 before either the black raspberry or the blackberry came into 

 general cultivation. Yet we are still talking about the buffalo 

 berry as a new fruit which ought to be introduced. Fuller, in his 

 "Small Fruit Culturist," published in 1867, gives a full account of 

 it. The fruit possesses good qualities, and the plant is useful in 

 ornamental planting, but it is not likely to reach a wide sphere of 

 usefulness as a fruit -producing plant, unless it should be in 

 localities where other garden fruits fail. Professor N. E. Han- 

 sen, of South Dakota, writes that he considers it of promise only 

 where the currant does not do well. Attempts to establish it in 

 Nebraska have thus far met with indifferent results. The fruit is 

 abundant, but its large seed and the thorny habit of the plant are 

 against it. Plants vary in the latter regard, and careful selection 

 might develop forms comparatively free from thorns. The berries 

 vary much in size, commonly being about the size of currants, 

 though sometimes as large as small gooseberries. It commonly 

 occurs along the borders of streams, which indicates that it may 

 need a moist soil. It is sometimes found on loose, dry sand, but 

 with available moisture beneath. Its early-blooming period may 

 subject it to injury from spring frosts, hence a cool northern 

 slope would be desirable. 



Plants are propagated from suckers, cuttings or seeds. The 



*Amer. Garden, 11:650. 

 11873:23. 



