STRA WBERRIES — ORIGIN AND HIS TOR K 49 



From the poet Spenser we learn that to go a-strawberry- 

 ing was one of the earUest pastimes of the English people. 

 In the " Faerie Queen " we find these lines : — 



" One day, as they all three together went 

 To the green wood to gather strawberries, 

 There chaunst to them a dangerous accident." 



Very old, too, is the following nursery rhyme, which, 



nevertheless, suggests the true habitat of the F. vesca 



species : — 



" The man of the wilderness asked me 

 How many strawberries grew in the sea ; 

 I answered him, as I thought good, 

 *As many red herrings as grew in the wood.* '* 



The ambrosial combination of strawberries and cream 

 was first named by Sir Philip Sidney. Old Thomas Tusser, 

 of the 1 6th century, in his work, " Five Hundred Points of 

 Good Husbandry united to as many of Good Housewifery," 

 turns the strawberry question over to his wife, and doubtless 

 it was in better hands than his, if his methods of culture 

 were as rude as his poetry : — 



" Wife, into the garden, and set me a plot 

 With strawberry roots, of the best to be got ; 

 Such, growing abroad, among thorns in the wood, 

 Well chosen and picked prove excellent good." 



Who " Dr. Boteler " was, or what he did, is unknown, but 

 he made a sententious remark which led Izaak Walton to 

 give him immortality in his work, "The Compleat Angler." 

 '•'Indeed, my good schoUar," the serene Izaak writes, "we 

 may say of angling as Dr. Boteler said of strawberries, 

 ' Doubtless God could have made a better berry, but doubt- 

 less God never did ; ' and so, if I might be judge, God 

 never did make a more calm, quiet, innocent recreation 

 than angling," If this was true of the wild Wood straw- 



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