THE BRAMBLE. 



337 



I 



tended to Lear the following year, unless young 

 plants are wanted ; and if very large fruit is the 

 oljject, no suckers should be left at all ; on the 

 contrary, when the strongest suckers are wanted, 

 the fruit-bearing shoots should be cut down. 



The raspberry requii-es a rich moist soil and a 

 shaded situation, where plants grow singly. The 

 best varieties are the early prolific, Barnet, and 

 Cornwallis, seedling and large red, red Antwerp, 

 yellow Antwerp, Bromley hill, Cornish, double- 

 bearing. 



The American Raspberrt/ ( R. occidentalisj, 

 is a showy plant for large shrubberies. The 

 ii-uit of the dew berry, r. ccesius, is blue, and it 

 continues till frost comes on. It is an edible 

 berry, but possesses no very high flavour. 



The Beamble (ruhts frutieosua) Though 

 the bramble is rather annoying with its long 

 trailing stems and its sharp thorns, the fruit, 

 commonly called blackberry, is perhaps in its 

 wild state (and it does not need to be cultivated), 

 among the best, and certainly it is the most 

 abundant, of our native berries. The bramble 

 prefers a soil that is moderately good ; but it is 

 found in every situation, except marshes, to the 

 borders of which it creeps very close. On the 

 slopes of the Welsh mountains, more especially 

 in Denbighshire, the bramble beny grows to the 

 size of a middling gooseberry ; and in a dry and 

 sunny autumn is really an excellent fi-uit. Pliny 

 mentions the mulberry growing on a brier, which 

 probably was a fine blackberry. In England 

 there are a number of species confounded under 

 the names of rubus fruticosus, and rubus coryli- 

 foUus, that vary very much in the quality of 

 their fruit, some of them really deserving culti- 

 vation. The family of brambles is divided into 

 those with upright stems, those with prostrate 

 stems, and those with herbaceous stems. 



The CorylifoUus and Fruticosits are both com- 

 mon in our hedges. The shoots of the latter are 

 much tougher than those of the former, and are 

 preferred by thatchers for binding their roofs, 

 and by straw-hive and mat makers. The berries, 

 eaten at the moment they are ripe, are cooling 

 and grateful ; a little before, they are acid and 

 astringent, and a little after, disagreeably fla- 

 voured and astringent. 



The Arctic or Dwarf Crimson ( rubiis arcticus ) 

 is a small species, and a native of the coldest re- 

 gions of the world. Its fruit, however, is ex- 

 ceedingly delicious ; and were it possible to cul- 

 tivate it in any habitable situation, it would l)e 

 a most important addition to garden berries. We 

 have not heard of its ever having been found 

 either in England or in the Welsh mountains ; 

 and in Scotland it gi-ows only in the most wild 

 and elevated situations. Some of the Scottish 

 horticulturists have tried to raise it from the 

 seed, and have, we believe, obtained plants; 

 though the fruit, when they bore any, has been 



tasteless, and the plants themselves are preserved 

 alive with difficulty. The Arctic berry, which 

 grows in the wildest and most exposed districts 

 of Lapland, sometimes oifered to Linnsus the 

 only food which he found in his perilous journey 

 in those dreary regions ; and he thus speaks of 

 it with much feeliug : — " I should be ungrateful 

 towards this beneficent plant, which often, when I 

 was almost prostrate with hunger and fatigue, 

 restored me with the vinous nectar of its berries, 

 did I not bestow on it a full description." 



Tub Cloud-Berry (rubus chamcemorus J, 

 called also, in some parts of Scotland, the roe- 



124. 



Tho Cloud-berry. 



buck berry and knot beiTy. They grow on the 

 sides about the base of Alpine moimtains ; but 

 are only found in particular localities. The plant 

 is small, with a rather large handsome leaf, in- 

 dented and serrated at the edges. A single beiTy 

 grows on the top of the stem. They are about 

 the size of small strawben-ies, and the flavour is 

 exceedingly fine, superior to that of any of the 

 strawberries as found wild in this country, and 

 having a sharpness which does not belong even 

 to the best of those which are cultivated. They 

 remain in season for about a month ; and during 

 that time, the Highlanders, in the districts where 

 they are found (for they are by no means gene- 

 rally diffused over the Highlands), collect them 

 in considerable quantities, and make them into 

 excellent preserves. In the east, as well as the 

 north, the wild berries of the mountains and 

 valleys, which nature offers in such abundance 

 for a shoi't season, are thus used by man. 



This berry has not hitherto been raised in gar- 

 dens, as it seems difficult of naturalization to any 

 but its native soil and climate. Loudon thinks, 

 by raising it from seeds, and again from the 

 seeds of plants so raised, and so on for six or 

 eight generations, perhaps at the same time cross- 

 ing the flowers with those of the bramble or 

 raspberry, this plant might possibly become a 

 valuable accession to our native fruits. 



In more northern countries the cloud-berry is 

 still more abundant, so much so as to justify the 

 encomium passed on it by the poet, while speak- 

 ing of those dreary lands : — 

 2 u 



