| OCR Text |
Show Extraordinary Hybridizing. It is very generally known that there are two distinct species of wild blackberries black-berries which grow in our soil : the running or low blackberry and the bush or high blackberry. The fruit of the form?r is comparatively round, and usually begins to ripen about the 10th of July; that of the latter is conical-shaped, conical-shaped, more symmetrical in form than its humbler cousin, and superior in flavor. The low blackberry is generally general-ly entirely gone before the high blackberry black-berry begins to ripen. While gathering gather-ing high blackberries this summer, I discovered a clump of bushes, the fruit of which looked aud tasted very much like the low blackberry. On examining the ground beneath, I found that it was covered with vines, thickly set with fruit similar to that on the bushes. Now, here were two hybrids, or the same hybrid growing both on vines and bushes. The bush berries had given up their shape and flavor to the low berries, aud the vine berries had delayed their time of ripening ri-pening three weeks, thereby becoming exactly contemporary with their neighbors. neigh-bors. This is also a hybridization of of two distinct species, rather than a mixture of two varieties of the same species, and therefore is a step beyond what is generally attempted iu the experiments ex-periments of horticulturists. My summer sum-mer researches have also revealed the fact that the varieties of the huckleberry huckle-berry are more extensive than is generally gen-erally believed. While the number is usually limited to four or five. I am satisfied that there are nearly a dozen distinct varieties, all denominated by the general name ef hucklebeiry. Providence Journal. . |
