272 VEGETABLE SUBSTANCES. 



" Then unto London I dyde me hye, 

 Of all the land it bearyth the pryse ; 



' Code pescode,' owne began to cry 

 ' Strabery ripe and cherrys in the ryse.' " 



It is mentioned by Hollinshed, and the fact has 

 been dramatised by Shakespeare, that Glo'ster, when 

 he was contemplating the death of Hastings, asked 

 the bishop of Ely for strawberries : 



"My lord of Ely, when I was last in Holborn, 

 I saw good strawberries in yourgarden there." 



The palace and garden of the bishop occupied the 

 site which is now Ely-place. 



The cultivation of the strawberry, at the present time, 

 is very extensive in the neighbourhood of London. 

 The largest quantities, and the finest sorts, are grown 

 at Isleworth and Twickenham. One of the most 

 remarkable examples of the power of the human 

 body in the endurance of great and continued fatigue, 

 is shewn by the strawberry women, who, during 

 the season, carry a heavy basket on the head twice 

 daily from Twickenham to Covent Garden, walking 

 upwards of forty miles. Fatigue like this would soon 

 destroy a horse ; but these women, who come pur- 

 posely from Wales and the collieries, endure the 

 labour for weeks without injury or complaint. 



The common wood strawberry (which was pro- 

 bably the earliest cultivated) has the leaves rather 

 small, the runners (at the joints of which the new 

 plants are produced) slender, and often of a purple 

 colour. The fruit is small, and generally red, but 

 without much flavour, owing to its being shaded 

 from the sun. When brought out of the shade, or 

 in countries where the influence of the sun is more 

 powerful, both its size and flavour are very much 

 improved ; and though not the handsomest, it becomes 

 far from the worst of the cultivated sorts. There is 

 a variety of the wood strawberry a good deal paler, 

 both in the leaves and the fruit, than the one now 



