THE STRAWBERRY. 271 



the assistance of artificial heat, is at all comparable 

 with the strawberry in point of flavour ; and, if 

 the soil and situation be properly adapted to it, the 

 more cold the climate, indeed the more bleak and 

 elevated, the more delicious is the berry. The fine 

 aroma of the strawberry is not quite so evanescent 

 as that of the raspberry ; but it is by no means 

 durable, and the berries can be had in absolute 

 perfection only when taken from the plants, and in 

 dry weather, for a very slight shower will render 

 the strawberry comparatively flavourless. The soils 

 and situations in which the strawberry and the 

 raspberry come to the greatest perfection are the 

 very opposites of each other. The strawberry, in 

 all its varieties, certainly in all the finest of them, 

 is a sort of rock plant; and soil which contains a 

 good deal of decomposed rock, more especially if 

 that rock be greenstone, or any other containing 

 much clay, produces fruit of the finest flavour. 

 The places where the strawberry is the finest, as 

 raised for the market, and of course as produced at 

 the least expense of artificial culture, are probably 

 Edinburgh and Dundee, at both of which the soil 

 is of the description mentioned. 



The strawberry is very widely diffused, being found 

 in most parts of the world, especially in Europe and 

 America. Its common name is peculiar to England, 

 and is supposed to have been derived from the custom 

 of laying straw under strawberry plants when their 

 fruit begins to swell. Others, however, contend it is 

 sfraiyberry, from its trailing along the ground. The 

 gardener of Sir Joseph Banks revived this old me- 

 thod with advantage. The fruit was known in Lon- 

 don as an article of ordinary consumption, in the time 

 of Henry VI. In a poem of that age, called * Lon- 

 don Lyckpenny,' by John Lidgate, who died about 

 1483, we find the following lines : 



