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nafex - Re: [NAFEX] "Bangor" Blackberry update

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  • From: "Lon J. Rombough" <lonrom@hevanet.com>
  • To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>, breen@fedcoseeds.com
  • Subject: Re: [NAFEX] "Bangor" Blackberry update
  • Date: Tue, 9 Aug 2005 21:18:48 -0700

Given the number of fruits Hedrick worked with, his error rate is pretty low. Of the grapes I have that are covered in The Grapes of New York, all fit the descriptions pretty closely, with no more variation than might be accounted for by climate.
That doesn't mean the old sources are highly accurate, only that they are still the best starting point we have. However, as Heron points out, there is no guarantee they are absolutely perfect, and we should cross-compare with as many other sources as possible.
-Lon Rombough
Grapes, writing, consulting, my book, The Grape Grower, at http://www.bunchgrapes.com Winner of the Garden Writers Association "Best Talent in Writing" award for 2003.
On Aug 9, 2005, at 6:54 PM, Heron Breen wrote:


Hi All,
I went and tasted the fruits of the "Bangor" blackberry I wrote about a few months
ago (see past threads) and it is delicious. Very mild and perfumy sweet. Even the
black but not full ripe ones have no sourness to them. Thumb-tip joint size to
middle-finger joint tip size. Knowing that these are indeed the heirloom
blackberries in question due to its current keeper having recieved the plants from
the originator's cousin 60 or so years ago now brings an interesting contradiction:
U P Hedrick trialed and rated "Bangor" in "The Small Fruits of NY", I believe, and
rated as small and insipid. This berry is neither. Three possibilities are
1- The berry observed by Hedrick was not true to name.
2- The berry observed by Hedrick was affected by a warmer climate
3- The berry observed by Hedrick was mixed up with another one when collecting and
reviewing data.

This leads me to ask whether we should be trusting older sources any more than we
trust newer sources of reference. Newer soures of reference can be just as unclear
or wrong, even with color pictures. (Recently this was proven true in my life with
an attempt to identify the leaf type of Valerian, different books illustrating and
picturing both palmate and pinnate.) Just because some older book says a certain
fruit variety is awful does not mean it should be ruled out? Maybe we are using
these 'histories' as guides, but I would have been a fool to ignore this blackberry
on Hedrick's opinion.
What do you all think?
Heron Breen
zone 4, Maine



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