FOREIGN AND NATIVE SPECIES. 223 



properly is no bagatelle. Sometimes you will find the fruit 

 grower's family in the field, from the matron down to the 

 little ones that cannot reach the highest berries. But the 

 home force is wholly insufficient, and any one who will pick — 

 man, woman or child — is employed. Therefore, drifting 

 through the river towns during June and July, are found 

 specimens almost as picturesque, if not so highly colored, as 

 those we saw at Norfolk, — poor whites from the back 

 country and mountains ; people from the cities on a humble 

 "lark," who cannot afford to rusticate at a hotel; semi- 

 tramps, who have not attained to the final stage of aristo- 

 cratic idleness, wherein the offer of work is an insult which 

 they resent by burning a barn. Rude shanties, with bunks 

 are fitted up to give all the shelter they require. Here they 

 lead a gypsy Hfe, quite as much to their taste as camping in 

 the Adirondacks, cooking and smoking through the June 

 twilight, and as oblivious of the exquisite scenery about them 

 as the onion-eating peasants of Italy ; but when picking the 

 fruit on a sunny slope, and half-hidden by the raspberry 

 bushes. Nature blends them with the scene so deftly that even 

 they become picturesque. 



The little round *' thirds," as they are termed, into which 

 the berries are gathered, are carried out of the sunlight to 

 sheds and bams ; the packer receives them, giving tickets 

 in exchange, and then, too often with the deliberation and 

 ease induced by the summer heat, packs them in crates. 

 As a result, there is frequently a hurry-scurry later in the 

 day to get the berries off in time. 



The Fastollf, Northumberland Fillbasket, and Knevett's 

 Giant are fine old English varieties that are found in pri- 

 vate gardens, but have never made their way into general 

 favor. 



The Franconia is now the best foreign variety we have. 



