Re: [nafex] New Hampshire blueberry bragging rights!

["J. Rosano II" <GIANNI-2@prodigy.net>]

Vic,

Do you recall in the blueberry book if it substantiated Coville being the 
true blueberry Grandfather?
Or is there a discrepency Whitefield vs: Greenfield...
Hmmmmmmm.

John
S. NH
"victoria l. caron" wrote:
> 
>     There was a book I borrowed from our local library years ago and that I
> can probably find out the title and author. This book was totally about
> blueberries and was written by a woman who had bought a property in
> Whitefield, NH which had a commercial lowbush business. In her book she
> covered the history of the first several selected and named highbush
> varieties and their origins (all the Greenfield, NH area). For anyone
> wanting more info on the history of cultivated blueberries this book is
> pretty original and should be available in libraries. I'm pretty sure the
> title is 'Blueberries.' ...................Vic in NH.
> 
> "J. Rosano II" wrote:
> 
> > Excerpted from the NH Weekly Market Bulletin...
> >
> > Date: Wednesday, August 16th.
> >
> > Story: All Cultivated Blueberries Trace Back to Greenfield, NH
> >
> > Every pint of cultivated blueberries harvested in the world contains a
> > little bit of New Hampshire....
> > As the blueberry harvest for 2000 progresses, it's worth taking a look
> > at the history of the domestication of the species, and there's nobody
> > better to go to than Roger Swain, nationally acclaimed writer on the
> > horticultural subjects and host of the popular PBS gardening series,
> > Crockett's Victory Garden.
> > Today's highbush blueberries trace their origins to an old farm in the
> > NH town of Greenfield that was purchased in 1905 by a USDA botanist
> > named Frederick Vernon Coville to be a summer vacation retreat.
> > Coville discovered the overgrown pastures on the farm were full of both
> > highbush and lowbush blueberries which yielded plentiful fruit for his
> > family to harvest. Swain writes.
> > "Nobody contemplated growing them commercially until Coville began his
> > famous experiments, discovering in short order that blueberries needed
> > a highly acid soil to grow well. If you plant them in ordinary garden
> > soil, they will yellow and die.
> > "In the summer of 1908 he selected a wild highbush plant whose fruits
> > had a superior size and flavor, which he named "Brooks" after
> > Fred Brooks, a neighbor on whose land the bush was growing, and a
> > lowbush he named "Russell" from Frank Russell's place on the other side
> > of the road.
> > "Back in Washington he crossed these two berries. They were in essence
> > the Adam & Eve of the cultivated blueberry," Swain continues.
> > "The first hybrid blueberry was named 'Pioneer.' It was introduced
> > along with two others by the USDA in 1920, and the rest, as they say,
> > is history."
> > Today there are more than 150 varieties of commercially grown blue-
> > berries. In the US more than 50,000 acres are in blueberry plantations,
> > and the fruit is now grown around the world. Coville's experiments have
> > generated value estimated at more than a billion dollars.
> > And those blueberry genetics all trace back to a little hill farm in
> > New Hampshire.
> >
> > Thanks to the, NH Weekly Market Bulletin.
> > Steven H. Taylor Commissioner
> > NH Dept. of Agriculture-Markets & Food.
> >
> > Funny most folks thought we only grew apples in NH.... : ]
> >
> > Best wishes,
> > John
> > Blueberry/NH
> >
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>                             [Don't just travel. Travel right.]
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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