A NEW FRUIT.

Evening Post, Volume LX, Issue 72, 22 September 1900, Page 3 (Supplement)

A NEW FRUIT.

A correspondent writes to The Times : —At this week's meeting of the Royal Horticultural Society a fruit was exhibited for the first time which bids fair to become very useful. From a botanical point of view also it is of considerable interest, the plant bearing it being a hybrid between the raspberry and the common blackberry. As the "Mahdi," as it has been called, was raised by Messrs. Veitch, its origin is well authenticated, the seed parent being a variety of the raspberry known as "Belle de Fontenay." The same cannot be said for the Logan berry trailing from the other side of the Atlantic, for which a somewhat •imilar parentage has been claimed. A high authority, however, is of opinion that the raspberry plays no part in its composition, and that both its parents were an American species of Rubus instead of only one. The "Mahdi" has very much the habit of the blackberry, and in cultivation it is trained in the same way. Its fruit recalls to some extent the dewberry of our hedges. There is the same bloom, but the number of fruitlets is greater. Careful scrutiny will reveal many intermediate characters ; the taste* of the "berry" combines a preponderant flavour of the dewberry with a suspicion of that of the raspberry. Most important is the time of fruiting as regards the future of the plant economically, for it comes into bearing as the raspberries are failing and, before the blackberries are ripe. The "Mahdi" is very prolific and has considerable claims to be a decorative plaht; it will not, however, be placed upon the market for probably another/ twelve months at least. An amusing illustration of the growing demand for athletic clergymen was recentlj given (says the Daily Telegraph) by a country curate who received notice to quit because, though unexceptionable in other respects, his vicar declared that "what this parish really needs is a good fast bowler with a break from the off." No doubt the worthy victtr perceived that no village lad could possibly reject the theology of a curate capable of winning | the annual cricket match against the neighbouring hamlet by his own prowess.