STKAWBEREIES. 197 



ing its hardy growth so well as the bleak air of its native 

 wilds ; though London believed it might be made to grow 

 in England by sowing its seeds for several successive gene- 

 rations in gardens, and perhaps crossing it with some 

 native variety of Rubus. 



CHAPTEE XVI. 



STEAWBEEEIES. 



ADOPTING the style of Baron Cuvier in his famous 

 criticism on the French Academy's definition of the crab, 

 it may be said that there are but two objections to the 

 title of the Strawberry : the one being that it is not a 

 berry, and the other that it has nothing to do with straw ; 

 the theory of botanists establishing the former fact, and 

 the practice of gardeners deciding the latter. It is true 

 that some deduce the etymology of the first syllable, not, 

 as it is generally traced, from the custom formerly adopted 

 of laying straw beneath the fruit to protect it from sully- 

 ing contact with the soil, but rather from the spreading 

 nature of the plant causing it to seem strewn or strawed 

 upon the ground ; but in this case the name is founded 

 on a word now obsolete ; or, again, on a corrupted one, 

 if, as is thought by others who adopt this derivation, 

 the title was originally $r#y-berry. As regards the 

 " berry " clause, whatever dates thus ignorantly from 

 days of ignorance must at least be in itself a proof of 

 antiquity, and who that rejoices, in "blue blood" can 

 doubt the superiority of any misnomer indubitably an- 

 cient, over the most correct appellation bearing yet on 

 its face the evidence of having been bestowed but yester- 

 day ? The strawberry, however, has something more to 

 vaunt than an English genealogy, however remote, for 



