73S ARBORETUM AND FRUTICETUM. PART 111. 



and they are preserved, either alone, or along with currants. Infused in 

 spirit, they communicate a most delicious perfume to it. Fermented, either 

 alone, or mixed with currants or cherries, they make a very strong and 

 agreeable wine ; from which a very powerful spirit can be distilled. Rasp- 

 berry wine was formerly much in use in Poland ; the fruit being there abun- 

 dant in the woods. In Russia, a mixture of raspberries and honey with 

 water, fermented, makes a delicious hydromel. Raspberries are also dried in 

 ovens for winter use. Raspberry vinegar is well known both in France and 

 England ; and, independently of its agreeableness when mixed with water, as 

 a summer drink, it is excellent as a febrifuge. In England, raspberries are 

 principally used for making raspberry jam and raspberry vinegar; and for pies 

 ami puddmgs, in combination with currants and cherries. They are excellent 

 eaten with milk or cream, with the addition of sugar, when fresh; and are 

 easily preserved in jars or bottles, entire, with or without sugar, for winter 

 use. They are reckoned very wholesome, and children are seldom, if ever, 

 injured by eating them. The roots of the raspberry plant are in demand by 

 some French cooks ; but we are uncertain to what use they are applied ; 

 probably in the dressing of game. 



The Varieties cultivated in British gardens are numerous : twenty-one of the 

 best, with their synonymes, are characterised in the London Horticultural 

 Society's Catalogue of Fruits for 1831 ; among which, those differing most in 

 general appearance, and, consequently, most suitable for being planted in an 

 arboretum, are, the red Antwerp, the yellow Antwerp, the smooth cane (a 

 large-growing and very distinct variety, which Miller considered as a spe- 

 cies), and the old white, or perpetual-bearing. 



Propagation and Culture. The raspberry requires a vegetable soil, rather 

 moist, soft, and not very deep ; because most of the roots, like those of all 

 other plants that throw up numerous suckers, keep near the surface; and 

 the situation should be shaded, rather than fully exposed to the meridian sun. 

 In a wild state, it is almost always found more or less shaded by trees, but not 

 under their drip ; and in woods, the situation of which is rather low and moist, 

 than hilly and rocky or dry. The root belongs to that description which is called 

 travelling ; that is, the suckers extend themselves all round the central plant, 

 so as every year to come up in fresh soil. Hence, as Miller observes, a rasp- 

 berry plantation requires to be renewed every five or six years. The rasp- 

 berry, for this reason, has been considered as a good example of the doctrine 

 of the excretion of plants, first broached by Brugmans ; afterwards explained 

 in detail by De Candolle, in the Physiologie Vegetate, vol. i. p. 219., and sub- 

 sequently elucidated, by various experiments, by M. Macaire. (See Suppl. 

 Encyc. Agri., p. 1301.) This doctrine, which, in Britain, seems to have been 

 first hinted at by Mr. Sheriff of Mungos Wells, and Mr. Towers, the author 

 of the Domestic Gardeners Manual, is supposed to account scientifically for 

 the effect of naked fallows on soils ; but a sufficient number of experiments 

 have not yet been made, to establish the doctrine on a secure foundation. 

 (See Gard. Mag., xii. p. 299.; and Phil. Mag., 3d ser., vol. viii.) It is certain, 

 however, that the raspberry, in a wild state, is continually changing its situa- 

 tion ; and, in a state of culture, that it requires to be frequently taken up, 

 and replanted in fresh soil. The seeds of the raspberry are said to retain 

 the vital principle for a very long period; and a plant, now (1836) in the 

 Horticultural Society's garden, was raised from seeds found in a barrow, 

 or tumulus, in Wiltshire, opened in 1835; which, unless we can suppose the 

 seeds to have been conveyed into the interior of the tumulus by insects 

 or vermin, must have lain there many centuries. 



§ ii. Leaves digitate, of '3 — 5 Leaflets, 

 jk 10. Ii. lacinia'tus W. The cut-leaved Bramble. 



U at&cation. Willd. Hort Hero)., p. 82. and t. 82. j Dec. Prod., 2. p. 558. ; Don's Mill., 2. p. 532. 

 Willd Hort. BeroL, t. 82. ; Wats. Demi. Brit., t. 69. ; and our^. 453. 



