SEPTEMBER FRUITS. III 
I said, ‘What influence me preferred, 
Elect, to dreams thus beautiful?’ 
The vines replied, ‘And didst thou deem 
No wisdom from our berries went?’” 
The small cranberry (Vaccinium Oxycoccus, L.) 
may be of comparatively small value, but the large 
cranberry (V. macrocarpon, Ait.) is probably the most 
important of our native berries reduced to cultivation. 
The cranberry bog, like the huckleberry pasture, has 
become a considerable source of income when properly 
managed. The fruit of the cranberry tree (Viburnum 
Opulus, L.) is sometimes used as a substitute for the 
cranberry, which it much resembles in appearance. 
This shrub has two characteristics desirable in an orna- 
mental shrub or tree: it is showy in flower and in fruit. 
The wild black cherry and the choke-cherry dis- 
play their long bunches of ripened fruit at this season, 
and the wild grapes are hanging over the walls or de- 
pending from the topmost branches of trees. The red 
berries of the barberry attract the eye as they hang like 
gems from every part of the bush. Under foot the red 
berries of the bearberry and the checkerberry are sought. 
Most of these, when not collected by man, furnish an im- 
portant part of the food of birds and other wild creatures 
which depend on the bounty of Nature. 
But the fruits which may be considered as inedible 
surpass these in number. The black berries of the 
