THE BRAMBLES OF THE FARM 



297 



Our most typical bramble is the wild blackberry. 

 Its stout, thorny biennial canes shoot up to full height 

 one year, and bloom and fruit and die the next. Year 

 by year, the dead canes, commingled with the living, accum- 

 mulate in the bramble patch, making it more and more 

 impenetrable. They gather to themselves as they settle to 

 the earth, an abundance of falling leaves, and fill up the center 



of the thicket 

 with a rich 

 mulch that 

 keeps the 

 ground moist, 

 and favors the 

 gro\\i:h of the 

 tallest canes 

 and the finest 

 berries. There 

 is no chance for 

 grass to grow in 

 the midst of 

 such a thicket, 

 but only about 

 its borders. 

 The wild red 

 raspberry makes thickets that are less thorny and less 

 dense, but that are hard to penetrate because the long 

 overarching canes, fastened to the earth at both ends, 

 trip one up badly. The red canes, covered with whitish 

 bloom and bearing handsome and gracefully poised 

 leaves, are very beautiful. This bramble loves the shelter 

 of a brush pile or fallen tree. Its extremely long reach and its 

 habit of striking root wherever a tip meets the ground, enable 

 it to shift its location, moving one stride each season. It 

 often springs from seed on the top of some rotting log or 

 stump. 



Pig. 127. Wild blackberry: A young shoot of the season, 

 fruiting shoot, and a dead cane. 



