The Dewberries 209 



as reported in the "Transactions of the Massachusetts Horticultural 

 Society" for 1883, p. 129, it was brought to notice by Eliphalet 

 Thayer, who first exhibited it before that society, August 7, 1841. 



But these first introductions to cultivation, the Dorchester and 

 Lawton, were not calculated to bring swift and lasting popularity 

 to the blackberry as a garden fruit, for although large and attrac- 

 tive, their habit of turning black before they are ripe nearly always 

 led to their being gathered and eaten while green, and their conse- 

 quent condemnation as sour and poor in quality. Moreover, their 

 culture, being little understood, led to frequent failures and unsatis- 

 factory results, while their propensity to persist and spread, aided 

 by their unmerciful thorns, conspired to render them a terror to 

 many timid gardeners. In spite of all this, the blackberry has 

 steadily pushed its way into prominence, until it is to-day one of 

 our most satisfactory and profitable crops. Here, as with all other 

 fruits, we are far from attaining perfection. We have no ideal variety. 

 If we demand the best in point of hardiness, we must yield in size 

 and quality; if delicacy of flavor is the desideratum, something else 

 will be deficient. Yet to stand by a well-grown row of Early Cluster, 

 for example, to see its glistening sprays of glossy black hanging in 

 such graceful profusion, to gather its magnificent berries and to test 

 their sweet and melting quality, just like those finest and ripest ones 

 we used now and then to chance upon in some wooded nook which 

 everybody else had missed, is to forget for the time being that any- 

 thing further is to be desired in a blackberry. Still we have reason 

 to hope that the achievements of this energetic and vigorous porno- 

 logical youth are but an omen of what is yet to come. 



THE DEWBERRIES 



The dewberries are distinguished from the blackberries 

 chiefly by their trailing habit of growth, their early ripen- 

 ing, the character of the flower-cluster, and the method of 

 propagation. The true dewberries bear but few flowers 

 in each cluster, the clusters are cymose, the center flower 



