THE EARTH OUR STOREHOUSE 



The birds and the berries make almost as wonderful 

 a story as the bees and the flowers, for the birds as 

 well as the bees are good fairies to the plants. 



Suppose that long, long ago a low bush was grow- 

 ing on a rocky hillside, doing the best it could to get 

 water and food enough from the dry, barren soil, 

 not only to grow, but to blossom and ripen its 

 seeds. The seeds of this bush were not, like those 

 of the wood violet, encased in a hard, dry seed 

 pod. They grew in a bunch about the size of the 

 end of your little finger and each seed was covered 

 with a soft, juicy covering, so that the whole looked 

 like a collection of very small black balls. 



It was a blackberry bush growing there upon 

 that rocky hillside. But the blackberries on that 

 struggling bush were not very good; they were 

 mostly seeds with a scanty covering of pulp. If 

 you had picked one and eaten it you would have 

 made a wry face and gone on without picking an- 

 other. The berries were neither sweet nor juicy, 

 although they looked good to eat. 



But the plant was contented with its fruit, even 

 if the few people who tried it in those long-ago days 

 were not. A rocky hillside was the natural home 

 of the blackberry bush. It was quite used to get- 

 ting along without much water. The leaves were 



53 



