WILD FRUITS 43 



pastime as in former years ; but the old customs in 

 connection with it are as obsolete as the use of acorn 

 bread. No one will now be found, with the good 

 Vicar of Wakefield and his honest neighbours, to 

 "religiously crack nuts on Michaelmas eve." 



It is to the order RosacecB that most of our wild 

 fruits belong. In this large and important tribe are 

 included such well-known examples as plums, cherries, 

 strawberries, raspberries, apples, and pears, all of 

 which may be found in a wild state in Britain. Plums 

 are represented in our native flora by three species, 

 or sub-species — the common sloe or blackthorn, the 

 bullace, and the wild plum. The latter can hardly 

 perhaps be pronounced with certainty to be indigenous, 

 though it is often found in apparently wild situations, 

 but of the other two species there can be no question. 

 The sloe-bush or blackthorn is very common in our 

 thickets and hedgerows, and the fruit is still gathered 

 for the purpose of making sloe-gin. Old Nicholas 

 Culpeper says, and truly, that " the fruit ripens after 

 all other plums whatsoever, and is not fit to be eaten 

 until the autumn frost mellow them." The bullace, 

 though less common than the last, is still plentiful in 

 many districts, as, for instance, in the Isle of Wight, 

 where it was formerly gathered by the country people, 

 and taken into market for sale for the purpose of 

 making tarts and puddings. " I once," wrote Dr. 

 Bromfield of Ryde in the year 1848, " brought home 

 a quart or more of these wild bullaces, and had them 

 made into a tart, which was one of the best flavoured 

 and most juicy I ever partook of." 



A near relation of the bullace is the wild cherry-tree, 

 or merry-tree, also known in certain districts as the 

 " Gean." This handsome tree is the origin of the 



