254 Plant-Breeding 



West Virginia in war time. In 1876, a few of the plants 

 were sent to Ohio, and from this start the present stock 

 has come. It is probable that similar wild varieties are 

 growing to-day in many parts of the country, but they 

 have not chanced to have -been seen by persons who are 

 interested in cultivating them. It is a form of the com- 

 mon wild dewberry that grows all over the Northeastern 

 states. Just why this particular patch in West Virginia 

 should have been so much better than the general run of 

 the species nobody knows, but it was undoubtedly the 

 product of some local environment or special ancestry. 



Early in the seventies, T. C. Bartel, of Huey, Clinton 

 County, Illinois, observed very excellent dewberries grow- 

 ing in rows between the lines of stubble in an old cornfield, 

 where the plant had evidently been quick to avail itself 

 of unoccupied land. This was introduced as the Bartel 

 dewberry, and is now the second in point of prominence 

 amongst the cultivated varieties. Other varieties have 

 appeared in much the same way. A fruit-grower in 

 Michigan found an extra good dewberry in a neighboring 

 wood-lot, and introduced it under the name of Geer, in 

 compliment to the owner of the place. In Florida an 

 unusually good plant of the common wild dewberry of 

 that region was discovered, and introduced by Reasoner 

 Brothers under the name of Manatee. There are now 

 about twenty named varieties of dewberries in cultivation 

 as described in our horticultural writings, all of which, 

 apparently, are chance plants from the wild. 



As the dewberries become more widely grown, good seed- 

 lings will now and then appear in cultivated ground, and 

 these will be named and sold. After a time persons will 



