THE KASPBEKKY AND ITS ALLIES. 193 



50 berries on a single bunch, the fruit too being of very 

 high flavour, and continuing in perfection for several 

 months. In order to have their produce in perfection, 

 Easpberry plantations require to be renewed every three 

 or four years, as the plants after that time begin to dege- 

 nerate, owing to their having exhausted the soil ; an effect 

 which they guard against while in a wild state, by con- 

 tinually changing their situation by means of their " tra- 

 velling" or creeping roots, which send up shoots at a 

 constantly increasing distance from the spot of their 

 origin. The seeds too afford another means of propa- 

 gation, and these are so unusually tenacious of vitality 

 that they have been known to retain their power of ve- 

 getation after having been boiled with sugar in the pro- 

 cess of jam-making ; while some, which had been in the 

 stomach of a man whose skeleton was found 30 ft. under- 

 ground at the bottom of a barrow opened near Dorchester, 

 when sown germinated and grew into plants, though, as 

 they had been buried along with some coins of the Em- 

 peror Hadrian, it is probable that they had lain thus for 

 1,600 or 1,700 years. 



In Prance Easpberries are very generally eaten, mixed 

 with Strawberries, at the dessert, and in England also 

 are sometimes brought fresh gathered to table ; but the 

 chief purpose for which they are employed is in pro- 

 cesses of cookery, since unlike the Strawberry, whose 

 delicate charms are almost entirely dissipated by heat 

 that powerful influence seems only more fully to develop 

 the richness of the Easpberry ; its being rather less whole- 

 some than the former while in a raw state being thus 

 fully compensated for by a far more extended range of 

 usefulness, raspberry jam holding a place as the very 

 prince of preserves, and being available anywhere all the 

 year round. This fruit affords too a rich though not very 

 potent wine, considered especially good in scorbutic dis- 

 orders ; and in Poland, where it abounds wild in the 

 woods, it was formerly largely consumed in this form; 

 .while in Russia it is commonly dried in ovens for winter 

 use. Easpberry vinegar, too, made by pouring vinegar 

 over successive quantities of the fresh fruit, still main- 



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