68 STRAWBERRIES. 



fine-grained expression. Some berries shine, the 

 Downer glows as if there were a red bloom upon it. 

 Its core is firm and white, its skin thin and easily 

 bruised, which makes it a poor market berry, but 

 with its high flavor and productiveness, an admirable 

 one for home use. It seems to be as easily grown as 

 the Wilson, while it is much more palatable. The 

 great trouble with the Wilson, as everybody knows, 

 is its rank acidity. When it first comes, it is difficult 

 to eat it without making faces. It is crabbed and 

 acrimonious. Like some persons, the Wilson will 

 not ripen and sweeten till its old age. Its largest 

 and finest crop, if allowed to remain on the vines, will 

 soften and fail unregenerated, or with all its sins 

 upon it. But wait till toward the end of the season, 

 after the plant gets over its hurry and takes time to 

 ripen its fruit. The berry will then face the sun for 

 days, and if the weather is not too wet, instead of 

 softening will turn dark and grow rich. Out of its 

 crabbedness and spitefulness come the finest, choicest 

 flavors. It is an astonishing berry. It lays hold of 

 the taste in a way that the aristocratic berries, like 

 the Jecunda or Triumph, cannot approximate to. 

 Its quality is as penetrating as that of ants and wasps, 

 but sweet. It is indeed a wild bee turned into a 

 berry, with the sting mollified and the honey dis- 

 guised. A quart of these rare-ripes I venture to say 

 contains more of the peculiar virtue and excellence 

 of the strawberry kind than can be had in twice the 

 same quantity of any other cultivated variety. Take 



