BLACKBERRIES 76 
then, will the blackberry yield the enormous harvest of 
which it is capable. 
With respect to situation it is not difficult to meet the 
brambles’ requirements, for their hardihood is one of 
their great recommendations. If they receive plenty of 
air and sunshine, the situation is provided; but in 
districts where keen cutting winds prevail at various 
seasons of the year, and especially in spring and early 
autumn, endeavour should be made to secure a site 
where rising ground or woodland provides a little 
aecuer al) the American varieties appreciate a 
southern or a south-western aspect, but British varieties 
do as well with an eastern exposure as with any other, 
provided the severity of the east wind is broken. 
PROPAGATION AND PLANTING 
In a delightful lecture, delivered before the Royal 
Horticultural Society in 1901, on ‘‘ British and Irish 
Wild Plants worthy of Culture and Improvement,” Mr 
F. W. Burbidge, M.A., V.M.H., observed that ‘ Of 
all our native or wild fruits, the one worth earnest 
attention, culture, and improvement, is the common 
blackberry or bramble. Every stretch of blackberry 
country, every hedge, in fact, contains varieties of 
widely varying merit, and we must select the best 
flavoured, the largest fruited, and most prolific kinds.” 
With this statement no one is likely to disagree, but it 
involves the question of raising seedlings, for, as 
gardeners are well aware, selected parents, followed by 
sowing seed of the finest berries and a rigid selection of 
the finest resultant seedlings—repeating the sowing and 
selection through several generations, it may be—is one 
of the best methods of obtaining new varieties of this or 
similar fruits. Seeds may be parted from the fruit by 
