The Blackberry. 209 



aright pronounce the most desirable after grape-wine. 

 In sickness it is invaluable as a tonic, and nothing is 

 found more trustworthy in complaints of the diarrhoea 

 class. The art of manufacture is simple enough : 

 Measure your berries and bruise them, and to every 

 gallon of the fruit add a quart of boiling water. Let the 

 mixture stand for twenty-four hours, occasionally stirring; 

 then strain off the liquid, adding to every gallon a couple 

 of pounds of refined sugar, and keep it in a cask, tightly 

 corked, till the following October, when it will be ripe 

 and rich. " Blackberry cordial," another preparation of 

 singular merit, is made by expressing the juice, adding 

 half a pound of white sugar to every quart, with half an 

 ounce each of nutmeg and cloves, then boiling for a 

 short time, and when cold adding a little brandy. With 

 so many substantial recommendations, how regretful it 

 becomes to see the blackberry left to decay, as it often is, 

 to the extent of thousands of tons. Nowhere in the three 

 kingdoms is it more plentiful or of finer quality than 

 in the southern parts of Ireland. Yet there, this natural 

 gift of the soil, untaxed, uncharged for, " without money 

 and without price," while it might be made a source of 

 immense and permanent wealth to the poorer inhabitants, 

 is left wholly untouched ; and this when we are sending 

 millions of money every year to foreign countries for 

 fruits that have not half the intrinsic worth of the ill- 

 requited Rubus fruticosus. In Hampshire the people are 

 wiser. Owing to the great extent of Crown lands in that 

 county, allowed as they are to remain in a semi-wild con- 



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