THE BRAMBLES OF THE FARM 297 
Our most typical bramble is the wild blackberry. 
Its stout, thorny biennial canes shoot up to full height 
one year, and bloom and fruit and die the next. Year 
by year, the dead canes, commingled with the living, accum- 
mulate in the bramble patch, making it more and more 
impenetrable. They gather to themselves as they settle to 
the earth, an abundance of falling leaves, and fill up the center 
of the thicket 
with a rich 
mulch that 
keeps the 
ground moist, 
and favors the 
growth of the 
tallest canes 
and the finest 
berries. There 
is no chance for 
grass to grow in 
the midst of 
such a thicket, 
but only about 
Fic. 127. Wild blackberry: A young shoot of the season, a : 
fruiting shoot, and a dead cane. * its borders. 
The wild red 
raspberry makes thickets that are less thorny and less 
dense, but that are hard to penetrate because the long 
overarching canes, fastened to the earth at both ends, 
trip one up badly. The red canes, covered with whitish 
bloom and bearing handsome and gracefully poised 
leaves, are very beautiful. This bramble loves the shelter 
of a brush pile or fallentree. Its extremely long reach and its 
habit of striking root wherever a tip meets the ground, enable 
it to shift its location, moving one stride each season. It 
often springs from seed on the top of some rotting log or 
stump. 
