STUDIES OF PLANT LIFE 

 SWAMP BLUEBERRY Vaccinium corymbosum (L.). 



This is a large handsome shrub, from five to eight feet high, 

 found in many varieties growing in swamps. The corolla is 

 larger than either of the above and of a purer white. The 

 leaves are ovate and entire, and slightly pubescent. The rich 

 berries begin to ripen in August, and are the latest of the 

 season. 



These pretty shrubs, laden with their luscious berries, may 

 be found on all dry open places. The poor Indian squaw 

 fills her bark baskets with the fruit and brings them to the vil- 

 lages to trade for flour, tea, and calico, while social parties of 

 the settlers used to go forth annually to gather the fruit for 

 preserving, or for the pleasure of spending a long summer's 

 day among the romantic hills and valleys, roaming in un- 

 restrained freedom among the wild flowers scattered in such 

 rich profusion over those open tracts of land where these 

 useful berries grow. These rural parties would sometimes 

 muster to the extent of fifty or even an hundred individuals, 

 furnished with provisions and all the appliances for an 

 extended picnic. 



Many years ago, when the beautiful Rice Lake plains lay 

 an uncultivated wilderness of wild fruits and flowers, shaded 

 by noble, wide-spreading oaks, silver birches and feathery 

 pines, an event occurred that excited great interest in the 

 neighborhood and for miles around, the excitement even 

 penetrating to distant settlements on the Otonabee, then the 

 border-land of civilization north of the Great Lakes. 



It was in the month of July, 1837, that a large party of 

 friends and neighbors near Port Hope agreed to make a 

 picnic party to gather huckleberries and pass a pleasant 

 summer day on the Bice Lake plains. They made a large 

 gathering in waggons and buggies and on horseback. Among 



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