Though we have had the luxury of blackberries for a quarter of a century, our improved kinds seem unknown to any extent in Europe. A correspondent of the Garden has recently visited America, and thus writes :

"The bramble, or, as usually called, the blackberry. They have no wild brambles more edible than our wild ones, and yet by selection and careful culture they have brought the blackberry to be a fruit in no way to be despised. There are a great many varieties, and some of them have been in cultivation for thirty or forty years, but I must say that I think our wild bramble, which is naturally a most variable plant, would by culture and selection soon produce something as good as any the Americans yet have. It may be noticed that there are some of our wild brambles much sweeter than others, and some much larger than others, and as this seems to belong rather to individual plants than to varieties, I think it only requires selection to give a good start towards British blackberries. These I would expect to produce good crops that would at least pay the trouble of culture on ground that is at present worth nothing. Bramble treatment is very similar to that of the raspberry, but being a more robust grower it is better to be on poorer soil and to be severely pruned, which keeps it from running too much to wood.

I have no doubt that if fruit of good varieties of this could be produced in quantity enough to make it a recognized market fruit it would soon come to command good prices."

We have under culture in America the cut leaved variety of the common English blackberry, | and which fruits regularly every year; but we fear the chance of ever improving it to the standard of the American would be small. Better at once introduce the American varieties, unless, which indeed may be likely, the English summer is not warm enough to make the American species grow well.