777.5" LUCRE TI A DEWBERRY. 



275 



In size of fruit and productiveness the best plants of 

 Lucretia are all that can be desired. An illustration of 

 an average cluster from a good plant is given on preced- 

 ing page ; the detached fruit is natural size. The quality 

 of the Lucretia is a moot point. With us this year the 

 quality was certainly inferior. The berries lack sweet- 

 ness and character. This is well illustrated by the fact 

 that our customers declined to buy the dewberries when 

 the blackberries beean to ripen, although the dewberries 

 were the more attractive in appearance. Others, how- 

 ever, maintain that the Lucretia is superior in quality to 

 the blackberry. Much undoubtedly depends upon the 

 season and the soil. 



The Lucretia is rather soft in texture, but it will evi- 

 dently carry well in 

 transportation. It is 

 attractive in shape 

 and packs well in 

 the box. One of the 

 advantages of all 

 dewberries is the 

 ease with which 

 they can be protect- 

 ed in the winter, and 

 this must serve to 

 render them attrac- 

 tive to northern 

 fruit-growers. The 

 canes are probably 

 no hardier than 

 those of the black- 

 berry, but the nat- 

 ural protection of 

 the earth and snow 

 often carries them 

 through winters 

 that seriously in- 

 jure blackberries. In 

 our own plantation 

 the canes have not 

 been injured to any 

 extent. 



Sut what is the 

 general value of the 

 Lucrettia dewberry? 

 Is it an acquisition ? 

 question unreservedly 



It 



Lucretia, from a Poor 



ipossible to answer this 



It seems to me to be a valu- 

 able fruit because of its earliness, large size and attrac- 

 tiveness, and a habit of growth which affords winter 

 protection in the north. The canes are very thorny, and 

 this feature, in connection with the low growth, makes 

 the gathering of fruit unpleasant. But a proper system 

 of pruning and mulching will overcome some of this 

 difficulty, and if the canes are tied to a trellis the pick- 

 ing is pleasanter than the picking of blackberries. 



The adverse opinions often come from persons who 

 allow the plants to grow at will— a treatment from which 

 we have no reason to expect good results. Cultivation 

 and pruning are as essential in the dewberry as in the 



blackberry. We must learn how to overcome the failure 

 of the flowers to set, and to prevent formation of nub- 

 bins. In my experience, however, the greatest difficulty 

 has arisen from the great variations in the plants, and I 

 suspect that much of the supposed tendency to form 

 nubbins is really a permanent characteristic of some 

 plants that are not true to type. In a plantation of 50 

 plants fully half bear worthless fruit, while the remainder 

 bear large and handsome berries. Our illustrations show 

 these differences well, one showing fruit from the best 

 plants and the other fruit from the poorest ones. The 

 plants also vary greatly in the time of ripening their 

 fruit. The best plants gave ripe fruit this year July 8, 

 but others gave none until the i6th. Whether this vari- 

 ation comes from 

 a sporting in the 

 variety since its in- 

 troduction, or i s 

 chargeable to the 

 substitution of 

 wild or inferior 

 plants by dealers, 

 it is impossible to 

 say ; but it is a ser- 

 ious drawback to 

 dewberry - culture. 



To sum up, it 

 appears to be safe 

 to say that the Lu- 

 cretia dew berry 

 possesses desirable 

 features, and that 

 in many places it 

 will be found prof- 

 itable. It needs 

 pruning and other 

 attention, and trel- 

 lising is often ad- 

 vantageous. It is 

 about as hardy as 

 the common black- 

 berries, but it is 

 easily protected. 

 Its greatest merits 

 are earliness, large 



size, and the ease with which it can be protected from cold. 

 Its greatest demerits are the frequent failure of its flow- 

 ers to set, and the formation of nubbins, its variability and 

 the labor of picking. It has received commendations 

 from Vermont to Florida and California. It is probable 

 that it will gain in favor as a fruit of secondary im- 

 portance when the best methods of growing it become 

 better known, and in such localities its culture may prove 

 profitable. 



There are, in all, a dozen varieties of dewberries in 

 cultivation, of which the Lucretia is best known. Win- 

 dom and Bartel are prominent in some places, and Mana- 

 tee has also been grown to some extent. — L. II. Bailey, 

 in Cornell University Bulletin. 



One-half natural size. 



