THE HIGH BUSH BLUEBERRY 
By J. RUSSELL SMITH, Sc. D. 
, doesn't exactly make sense, but it’s real just the same. |’m 
talking about the fun | have picking high bush blueberries. There is 
no explaining it. It just is, and so we go on from there. 
Perhaps it’s the primeval hunting instinct. Some men get a thrill 
out of catching a fish, some from shooting a bird, some must stalk big 
game. . But really now, did you ever see a blueberry bush standing 
up in front of you, as tall as you are or perhaps a little taller, and 
with great clusters of blueberries as big as small marbles, the ripe 
ones covered with that delicate sky blue bloom that you may have 
seen on some grapes? And then have you tickled those bunches with 
your finger tips and had these luscious morsels roll into the palm of 
your hand? If you haven’t done that you have something coming to you. 
Perhaps you are a woman. Well this fun of picking blueberries 
is not a merely masculine delight. My neighbor, who is a grandmother, 
says it is fun to pick them and she is planting a lot of bushes now that 
her first bushes have proved themselves. 
And are the blueberries good to eat? If they were not they would 
not be selling at 50 to 60 cents a pint for weeks and weeks each 
summer. 
Yet more! The bush is a first-class ornamental for your lawn. The 
bright new foliage of May is followed by clusters of interesting flowers 
and then by clusters of berries. The flowers cause the bush to appear 
pinkish-white for a couple of weeks. The ripening berries make a 
multiple appeal, esthetic, economic, gustatory and give you a sense 
of achievement before you touch them. In autumn the leaves are dark 
red and stay on till freezing weather. After the leaves fall the bark 
on the new growth is rich dark red until covered by the new foliage—a 
12-month beauty. Is there any other ornamental that is a real ornament 
and also a heavy producer of delicious food? 
Trout fishing costs money. Gunning costs money, so do most sports, 
but a blueberry bush soon pays for itself and then does it over and 
over again. They live on as apple trees live on, and keep sending up 
fresh shoots. | 
They are very regular bearers. The terrible and untimely heats 
of March and the freezes of April and May 1945 wiped out my apples, 
peaches, grapes and cherries, but the blueberries 100 yards away 
seemed never to hear about these troubles. 
