The seeds of the fruit eventually produced were endowed with
characteristics of both the foreign and native strains.
Occasionally these seeds fell where they had a chance to grow, and
so produced a fortuitous seedling plant which soon matured into a
bearing bush, differing from, both of its parents, and not
infrequently surpassing both in good qualities. Some one
horticulturally inclined having observed the unusually fine fruit
on the chance plant, and believing that it 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, I believe, was the history of the
Cuthbert--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 were crossed, and a new and hardier 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 process the
area of successful raspberry culture has been extended almost
indefinitely.
Within recent years a third step forward has been taken.
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