6 NOVEMBER 1897, Page 30

THE AMERICAN BLACKBERRY.

[To TEE EDITOR Or THE "SPECTATOR."] SIE,—I read in the Spectator of October 30th that your correspondent from the Isle of Wight has failed to grow the American blackberry with any success ! I think your readers may be interested to hear my very different account of the American black berry as grown at Formby in Lancashire. It evidently revels in our very sandy soil. Ten or twelve years since Messrs. R. Smith sent me four small plants ; after two years they began to fruit, and ever since we have never failed to get good crops of delicious fruit more like mulberries than blackberries in appearance. They are most ornamental, growing rampant over many yards' length of trellis, and seed themselves all over the garden.—I am, Sir, Sze.,