174 Bush-Fruits 



state of comparative cultivation of the foreign and native species 

 and varieties at the present time, for of the fourteen foreign varieties 

 and their seedlings still retained, not over five or six are now culti- 

 vated to any extent, and these only in very limited areas. 



While the Rubus Idceus type is everywhere acknowledged to be 

 superior in the quality of its fruit, it is not able to maintain itself 

 against summer suns and winter winds, and has had to give place 

 to hardier sorts, better able to fight their own battles and emerge 

 from them bearing abundant trophies of fruit, not so exquisite, per- 

 haps, yet more substantial and sure. Moreover, with the gradual 

 improvement which has gone on, there is at present little need for 

 foreign varieties. The best of our natives yield fruit which is doubt- 

 less far superior to that which gratified the gods on Mount Ida in 

 those days of war and wonder. Among the first varieties of R. 

 strigosus to become prominent were the Stoever and Brandywine. 

 The former is a form of the American red, found wild near Lake 

 Dunmore, in Vermont, by Jefferson F. Stoever, and removed to his 

 garden at Tacony, near Philadelphia, where it first fruited in 1859. 

 The Brandywine, or Susqueco, as it was at one time called (Susqueco 

 being the Indian name for Brandywine), is of unknown origin. It 

 first attracted attention in the Wilmington market, and was for a 

 time called Wilmington. 



We are accustomed to boast of the marvelous progress in all lines 

 of American development. What advance can we show in the im- 

 provement of the raspberry? Some, to be sure, but most of it has 

 been mere accident. In looking up the history of varieties it is the 

 same story over and over again "a chance seedling found growing 

 wild," etc. Nearly all of our prominent varieties have originated 

 in this way. A few men have gone to work systematically to breed 

 and develop varieties. The first and most prominent of these was 

 Dr. William D. Brinckle, of Philadelphia a busy physician, who, 

 having a taste for pomology, pursued it as a means of recreation 

 from other duties. He experimented with strawberries and pears, 

 as well as with raspberries. So important was his work in these lines 

 that he seems to be much better remembered for that than for his 

 medical reputation, although he was successful and prominent in 

 this field also. He was president of the American Pomological So- 



