AN ARCADIAN CALENDAR 



those that grow among thorns in the wood, " well 

 chosen and pricked, prove excellent good." Another 

 herbalist recommends that they be served in claret, and 

 remarks that in Devon they are so plentiful that they 

 may be gathered when riding on horseback; certainly 

 in a Devon lane they may be picked from the back of a 

 Dartmoor pony. An old name was " Straberry," and 

 " Straberry ripe " was among the old London street- 

 cries, a name possibly from the plant's habit of straying 

 by aid of its runners. On chalk downs one may come 

 upon beds of the wildings covering an acre or more. It 

 is a crop much neglected, in spite of its delicious, if 

 elusive, flavour. But in Paris, petites frais des bois are 

 sold at nearly every street corner. The plant is wonder- 

 fully decorative, with its charming trefoil leaves, and, 

 above, the glistening, drooping, red fruits, fit to make 

 a fairy's mouth water. A larger wild strawberry is 

 sometimes found, the Hautboy, standing for the first 

 result of efforts to cultivate the original wildings. 



OVER THE HILLS 



A WALK in Surrey, about Guildford, yields to-day a 

 botanical treasure in woad. Botanists are 

 Woad inclined to think that most of the woad we 



come upon to-day is descended from plants 

 brought over from the Continent to be cultivated for 

 the sake of the dye. Yet this is a plant which has played 

 a great part in our nation's story, if the philologist is 

 right in tracing the word Briton to the Celtic " brith," 

 or painted, signifying a man daubed, for lack of ward- 

 robe, in the juice of woad. Thus to this humble-looking 

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