Evening capital. (Annapolis, Md.) 1884-1910, 1886-07-20
RASPBERRY PLANTING.
A Practical Essay ON Raspberry Culture
Its Adaptability to all Soils.

The first need of the raspberry is a
well-drained, but not very dry, light
soil. Yet such is its adaptability that
certain varieties can be grown on any
land which will produce a burdock or
a mullcin stalk. In fact, this question
of variety chiefly determines our chances
of success, and the nature of our treat
ment of the fruit. The reader, at the
start, should be enabled to distinguish
the three classes of raspberries grown in
this country.
As was true of grapes, our fathers
first endeavored to supply their gardens
from foreign nurseries, neglecting the
wild species with which our woods and
road-sides abounded. The raspberry of
Europe (RabUs idguS) has been devel-
oped, and in many instances enfeebled,
by ages of cultivation. Nevertheless,
few other fruits have shown equal power
to adapt themselves to our soil and cli-
mate, and we have obtained from for
eign sources many valuable kinds, as,
for instance, the Antwerp. which for
weeks together annually taxed the carry
ing power of Hudson River steamers.
In quality these foreign kinds have
never been surpassed, but almost invar-
iably they have proved tender and fast
idious, thriving well in some localities,
and failing utterly Except under the
most skillful care) in others. The frosts
of the Forth killed them in winter, and
Southern suns shrivelled their foliage in
summer. Therefore they were not rasp-
berries for the million, but for those who
resided in favored regions, and were
willing to bestow upon them much care
and high culture.
Eventually another process began,
taking place either by chance or under
the skillful manipulation of the gardener
that of hybridizing. or crossing these
foreign varieties with our harder native
species. The best results have been at
tanned more frequently, / think, by
chance; that is, the bees, which get
more honey from the raspberry than
from most other plants. carried the
pollen from native flower to the bios
som Of the garden exotic. The seeds of
the fruit eventually produced were en-
d0wed with characteristics of both the
foreign and native strains. Occasion
ally these seeds fell where they had
chance to grow, and SO produced for
tuitous Seeding plant which soon ma
tured into a bearing bush, differing
from both of its parents, and not infre-
quently surprising both in good quail
ties Some one, horticulturally inclined,
having observed the unusually fine fruit
on the chance plant, and believing that
1T is a good plan TO help the fittest to
survive, marked the bush, and in the
autumn transferred it to his garden. It
speedily propagated itself BY suckers, or
young sprouts from the roots, and he
had plants to sell or give away. Such,
believe, was the history of the Cuth-
bert, named after the gentleman who
found it, and now probably the favorite
raspberry of America.
Thus, fOrtuitously, or by the skill of
the gardener, the foreign and our native
species we're crossed, and a new and
harder class of varieties obtained. The
large size and richness in flavor of the
European berry has been bred into and
combined with our smaller and more
insipid indigenous fruit. By this pro-
cess the area of successful raspberry
culture has been extended almost inde-
fnitely.
Within recent years n third step for
ward has been taken. Some localities
and soils were SO unsuited to the rasp-
berry that no variety containing even a
small percentage Of the foreign element
could thrive. This fact led fruit growers
to give still closer attention to our ma
tive species. Wild bushes were found
here and there which gave fruit of such
good quality and in such large quanfi-
lies that they were deemed well worthy
Of cultivation MANY Of these wild gne-
cimens accepted cultivation gratefully.
and showed such marked improvement
that they were heralded over the land
as Of wonderful and surprising value.
Some Of these pure unmixed varieties