THREE years ago I Was persuaded to try Davison's Thornless Black-Cap. My object is not to find fruits first for profit, but for enjoyment, and, possibly, profit afterward - fruits that will contribute to make a rural home delightful.

I have tested scores of all kinds of berries, and generally found it necessary to discard them, or else provide a doctor for each variety, whose whole business should be to study its whims and watch its ailments. But Davison's Thornless Raspberry I put down as about every Way a good satisfactory home fruit.

In the first place it is hardy-as hardy as a Black-Cap that meets the sharp frost with sharper thorns. It is a superb bearer; if not equal to Doolittle, it is equal to any ordinary emergency, and after a good summer's crop, it inclines to be generous quite into autumn. For growth of canes, on my soil, it surpasses all other varieties. Before the crop of 1870 was completely gathered, the new canes had shot up clear over our heads; many of them twelve feet high. These were reduced to a proper height for stakes, and the side shoots reduced from time to time, and now the plantation looks like a dwarf grove. The canes in sice and strength were maximum. But what has all this to do with the fact that any one can crowd through, and under, and handle the bushes without one serious scratch. There are a few small thorns at the jointure of the leaflets, but they are only imitation. A lady's dress is safe, and the gatherer's hands are safe. Just contrast your experience with any of the thorny varieties - clothes torn, hands bleeding, and temper worse off than either clothes or hands. You are caught and twitched at every move. No sooner has one plague let go with a bit of your skin, than another takes you by the coat-tail; till you feel fairly whipped and afraid to enter.

AH well enough when urchins are hired to do the picking, and you never see a berry till they sit beside the cream bowl. But I want a berry that I can visit at its home, and eat out of hand, and not have to run for my life, as if I were a thief, for touching it.

I set the Davison about twice as closely as any thorny variety, and then mulch the whole surface of the soil with a thick covering of long manure and saw-dust. Raspberries naturally crowd together, and in their native condition shade their own roots. Of course thorny varieties must be set far enough apart to allow of free passage. The Thornless can be allowed to stand in hills far enough apart one way for the pickers, and far enough the other way to work between with a hoe. Of course. I speak now of patches cultivated for home use, and not of large fields, where the object is the market. Alongside of Lennig's White Strawberry, therefore, set down Davison's Thornless Black-Gap, as a fruit for our country homes.

£. P. Powell.