8 MISC. PUBLICATION 1, U. S. DEPT. OF AGRICULTXJEE 



The teiuler leaves in spring; are sour, and some peoiile ate them 

 for salad, as sorrel leaves have sometimes been used. The sour juice 

 of the fruit ^vas presseil out and used in many ways, as lemon juice is 

 now useil, for ilav()rin«j^ some kinds of drinks and foods. It was used 

 also ft)r makin<^ vinegar. The fruit, cooked with molasses or su^^ar, 

 maile jam and jelly. It is no hardship now to s])are the barberry 

 fiom our tai)k^s, because there is identy of other fruit for jelly and 

 jam and vinei;ar, ami there are such ajjreeable drinks as lemonaile 

 and ^rape juice and rasj)berry shrub. 



Lon<r a;j^o, in the days before the lirst wire fences were made, when 

 faiiuers Avished to separate one field from another, they planted 

 hed<res. Of all the bushes they used in this way, the barberry was 

 the favorite because the numy stems made a thick heduje, and the 

 thorns kei)t men and animals from breakinj.^ through. It was many 

 years before farmers learned wliy their jj^rain crops did not grow 

 well near such hedjjes. 



The barberry was pleasant to look at. The poet Lowell wrote: 



All down the loost'-walled lanes in iircliin' Ixiwers 

 The liarb'i-y droops its strings o' goldiMi fluwers. 



It was not in springtime only that people enjoyed the barberry. 

 The bunches of red berries were attractive when they were rij^e, and 

 so were the autumn colors of the leaves. Such beauty, however, be- 

 lon^'ed only to a healthy bush. A barberry sick with rust and covered 

 with cluster cu])s was not a j^retty si'rht. 



So we find that there have been, at one time and another, several 

 rea.sons for liking the barberry bush. Some of these reasons explain 

 why people who came to America from England and Germany and 

 Sweden brought the barberry with them and ])lanted it in a land 

 where it had never grown before. In the same way, peojjle moving 

 westward from New England took the barberry whh them to other 

 ])arts of the United States. 



The one big im]:)ortant reason for considering the barberry an 

 enemy overshadows all the little reasons there once were for consid- 

 ering it a friend. This reason is that, in the great northern wheat 

 legions of this country, the common barberry is the plant from which 

 the black stem rust spreads to grasses and grains, including wheat. 



After a deed has been done, it often is easy to look back and say 

 whether it was well to do it. We know now that it was a terrible 

 mistake to bring such a ])est as the barberry to America. Even after 

 it had been ])]antPd in New Englanil, it should have been killed in- 

 , stead of being carried westward. This mistak(> that was made is 

 costing our coimtry great fortunes every year, for the barberry (be» 

 cause it scatters the spores of the destructive rust) is the worst enemy 

 of oiu' most important food crop — wheat. 



WHEAT IS IN DANGER 



"\Mieat has been irrown as a grain croj) for more than .5,000 years, 

 j)eihapR for more tnan 10.000 years. Who or where the i)eople were 

 who first sowed wheat in little gardens no one knows, because it was 

 so long ago. But there are reasons to think that the fii^st large wheat 

 farms may have been in Asia on fertile land between the Tigris and 

 tlie Euphrates Uiver.s. On the ancient tombs in Egypt there are pic 

 tures which show how people sowed wheat about C,<>0() years ago. 



