TAMING THE WILD BLUEBERRY 



137 



it best to look away and think of more 

 pleasant things. At last their purifica- 

 tion was over and on they came. Run- 

 ning very swiftly, they passed us like a 

 brown flash, and then, with a last fare- 

 well gesture to the now almost-vanished 

 sun, their kiva swallowed them up and 

 I realized the dance was over. 



I rode back to camp very silent, the 

 whole thing leaving me rather dazed, it 

 seemed so weird, so unreal ; and yet the 

 knowledge that the dance was the culmi- 

 nation of 16 days of fasting and prayer, 

 and the intense religious attitude of both 

 priests and people, impressed me more 

 than I was willing to admit. 



How was it that the poison of the 

 snakes had no effect on the dancers? 



I asked many for the solution of this 

 problem, and their answers were always 

 the same, "We don't know ; all we know 

 is, if any trader or sheep-herder is bitten 

 by a rattler, if we can get them to the 

 Snake priests they are always saved. 

 The cure, whether drug, herb, or incan- 

 tation, is kept secret, and the Snake clan 

 guard it as a sacred trust, never to be 

 divulged under any conditions." 



It was w 1 'th real regret we broke camp 

 next day, and, as we rode across the 

 desert, for several hours I kept looking 

 back at the mesa and the little Hopi 

 town, clothed in a dignity of its own, 

 holding the faith of its forefathers un- 

 changed, unmoved by the centuries of 

 civilization. 



TAMING THE WILD BLUEBERRY 



By Frederick V. Coville 



As the result of Mr. Coville s experiments with blueberries, it is very probable 

 that in a few years blueberries will be cultivated in the United States as exten- 

 sively and profitably as the cranberry. All the blueberries now used are picked 

 wild, just as were all the cranberries not so very many years ago. Many persons 

 in many parts of the United States now make good incomes by cultivating the 

 cranberry. Last year, for instance, the cranberry crop amounted to about one 

 million and a half bushels, zvorth three million dollars. Readers of this Magazine 

 desiring further information on the cultivation of blueberries are referred to 

 "Experiments in Blueberry Culture," by Frederick V. Coville, recently published 

 by the United States Department of Agriculture as Bulletin No. 193 of the Bureau 

 of Plant Industry. 



THE "taming of the wild blue- 

 berry" has involved the pursuit 

 of a strange and often dim trail 

 of scientific search, in the following of 

 which a curious chapter has been added 

 to the ever-increasing Book of Marvels 

 in which our knowledge of the founda- 

 tions of agriculture is recorded. 



The name blueberry is applied in New 

 England to plants of the genus Vacci- 

 nium, which have seeds so small as to be 

 unnoticeable when the berry is eaten, 

 while the name huckleberry is usually 

 restricted by New Englanders to the 

 genus Gaylussacia, in which each seed is 

 surrounded by a bony covering like a 

 minute peach pit, which crackles between 

 the teeth. 



In the South and West, however, the 

 name huckleberry is applied with little 

 discrimination to the various wild species 

 of both Vaccinium and Gaylussacia, 

 about 40 in number. This article deals 

 principally with the swamp or highbush 

 blueberry, Vaccinium corybosum, which 

 commonly grows from 4 to 7 feet high, 

 and produces berries in abundance and 

 of especially good flavor. 



The wild blueberries are everywhere 

 utilized for pies and jam and the well- 

 beloved blueberry cake and blueberry 

 pudding. An accurate valuation of the 

 wild blueberry crop has never been made, 

 but it undoubtedly reaches millions of 

 dollars annually. In blueberry districts 

 the yearly shipments from single small 



