338 



HISTORY OF THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 



" Ever enduring snows, perpetual shades 

 Of darkness, would congeal the living blood, 

 Did not the arctic tract spontaneous yield 

 A cheering purple berry, big with wine." 



In the northern parts of Sweden and Norway, 

 and in Lapland, even to the North Cape, the 

 cloud-berry grows in such abundance as to be 

 an article of extensive commerce. Great quan- 

 tities of it are sent every autumn to the Swedish 

 capital, and to the southern parts of that coun- 

 try, where they are used in a variety of ways ; 

 and. In fact, it forms the principal fruit that they 

 have. 



Dr Clarke notices the value of this berry in 

 his travels: — "In woods, and moist situations 

 near the river, we found the ruhus cliamoemorus 

 still in flower. The Swedes call it Hiorton ; the 

 Laplanders give it the name of Latoch ; the in- 

 habitants of Westro-Bothnia call it Snotter; and 

 in Norway its appellation is Multebiear. The 

 same plant is found upon some of the highest 

 mountains, and in some of the peat-bogs of the 

 north of England ; on which account, perhaps, it 

 is called cloud-berry in our island ; but it is not 

 likely that its fruit ever attains the same degree 

 of maturity and perfection in Great Britain as 

 in Lapland, where the sun acts with such power 

 during the summer. Its medicinal properties 

 have certainly been overlooked, owing, perhaps, 

 either to this circumstance, or to its rarity in 

 Great Britain. The fruit is sent in immense 

 quantities, in autumn, from all the north of the 

 gulf of Bothnia to Stockholm, where it is used 

 for sauces, and in making vinegar." 



Our English traveller, as appears by the fol- 

 lowing passage, was under greater obligations to 

 the cloud-berry than the Swedish naturalist to 

 the other species of Arctic fruit : " Mr Grape's 

 children came into the room, bringing with them 

 two orthreegallons of the fruit of the cloud-berry. 

 This plant grows so abundantly near the river, 

 that it is easy to gather bushels of the fruit. As 

 the large berry ripens, which is as big as the top of 

 a man's thumb, its colour, at first scarlet, be- 

 comes yellow. When eaten with sugar and 

 cream, it is cooling and delicious, and tastes like 

 the large American hautboy-strawberries. Little 

 did the author dream of the blessed effects he 

 was to experience by tasting of the offering 

 brought by these little children, who, proud of 

 having their gifts accepted, would gladly run and 

 gather daily a fresh supply, which was as often 

 blended with cream and sugar by the hands of 

 their mother, until at last he perceived that his 

 fever rapidly abated, his spirits and his appetite 

 returned, and, when sinking under a disorder so 

 obstinate that it seemed to be incurable, the 

 blessings of health were restored to him, where 

 he had reason to believe he should have found 

 his grave. The symptoms of amendment were 

 almost instantaneous after eating of these berries." 



The Strawbekry (fragraria vescaj. This 

 well known berry has received the jisme fraffra- 

 ria from its delightful flavour. No vegetable 

 production of the colder latitudes, or which can 

 be ripened in those latitudes without the assist- 

 ance of artificial heat, is at all comparable with 

 the strawberry in point of flavour; and if the 

 soil and sitxiation be properly adapted to it, the 

 more cold the climate, indeed the more bleak 

 and elevated, the more delicious is the berry. 

 The fine aroma of the strawberry is not quite so 

 evanescent as that of the raspberry ; but it is by 

 no means durable ; and the berries can be had 

 in absolute perfection only when taken from the 

 plants, and in dry weather, for a very slight 

 shower will render the strawberry comparatively 

 flavourless. The soils and situations in which 

 the strawberry and the raspberry come to the 

 greatest perfection are the very opposites of each 

 other. The strawberry, in all its varieties, cer- 

 tainly in all the finest of them, is a sort of rock 

 plant ; and soil which contains a good deal of 

 decomposed rock, more especially if that rock be 

 greenstone, or any other containing much clay, 

 produces fruit of the finest flavour. The places 

 where the strawberry is the finest, as raised for 

 the market, and of course as produced at the 

 least expense of artificial culture, are probably 

 Edinburgh and Dundee, at both of which the 

 soil is of the description mentioned. 



The strawberry is very widely difl^used, being 

 found in most parts of the world, especially in 

 Europe and America. Its common name is pe- 

 culiar to England, and is supposed to have been 

 derived from the custom of laying straw under 

 strawberry plants when their fruit begins to 

 swell. Others, however, contend it is strayherry, 

 from its trailing along the ground. The gar- 

 dener of Sir Joseph Banks revived this old me- 

 thod with advantage. The fi-uit was knovm in 

 London, as an article of ordinary consumption, 

 in the time of Henry VI. In a poem of that 

 age, called " London Lyckpeny," by John Lid- 

 gate, who died about 1483, we find the follow- 

 ing lines : — 



" Then unto London I dyde me liye, 

 Of all the land it bcaryeth the pryse ; 

 ' Gode pescode,' one began to cry — 

 ' Strabery rype, and cherrys in the ryse.' " 



It is mentioned by IloUinshed, and the fact has 

 been dramatised by Shakspeare, that Glo'ster, 

 when he was contemplating the death of Hast- 

 ings, asked the bishop of Ely for strawberries : 



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

 I saw good strawberries in your garden there." 



The cultivation of the strawberry is very ex- 

 tensive in the neighbourhood of London. The 

 largest quantities, and the finest sorts, are grown 

 at Isle worth and Twickenham. 



