Berry bush

“ Along the fences wild hops festooned themselves in graceful wreaths of wild luxuriance. A few clumps of cranberry bushes had also been permitted to remain, notwithstanding the American's antipathy to trees or bushes is such, that his axe, which he hardly ever stirs without, is continually flying about him; but this berry, one amongst the many indigenous to the country, is a useful addition to the winter store—they grow abundantly, and, after the first frost which ripens them they have a brilliant appearance, hanging like clustering rubies, reminding one of the gem-clad boughs of Aladdin. ”

“ There is hardly a more striking feature in the landscape now-a-days than the red patches of blueberry and whortleberry bushes, as seen on a sloping hillside, like islands among the grass, with trees growing in them; or crowning the summit of a bare, brown hill with their somewhat russet liveliness ”

“ As the blackberry bushes, year by year, creep down the steep hillsides and over the rock-covered fields, one rejoices at the pioneer work these modest, hardy, tap-rooted plants are accomplishing. How wisely and well they fit the soil for a higher and more noble class of plants, and how surely in time they cover the shame and nakedness of mother earth! ”

“ And then, one day while I lay in my hiding, I saw the mother heron slide swiftly down from the nest, make a sharp wheel over the lake, and plunge into the fringe of berry bushes on the shore after some animal that her keen eyes had caught moving. There was a swift rustling in the bushes, a blow of her wing to head off a runaway, two or three lightning thrusts of her javelin beak; then she rose heavily, taking a leveret with her ”

“ Although with us barberry bushes are for the most part denizens of the open, in Europe they are reported as often growing at the margin of woods. When in this situation, the branches become much more elongated, and, by using the recurved spines as grappling hooks, they climb over the shrubbery encompassing Leaves and the tree trunks, and finally gain support upon the branches of the trees themselves. Unlike ordinary vines, however, which only injure the plants that support them, the barberry may be Fig. 5.—Berberis aquifolium. ”

“ Like the English haw, its fruit requires two years to vegetate.
The barberry, so very abundant in our vicinity, is supposed to be an introduced shrub. It corresponds exactly with the Berberis vulgaris of Europe. It has only a limited locality on the seaboard of New England, and is riot found anywhere else on this continent. The vigor of its growth is especially note-worthy. It rises by the way-side; it grows in the chinks and crevices of the rocks; it spreads over neglected pastures, and looks around with a saucy confidence that seems to say, "All the world was made for barberry bushes." ”

“ A trail that runs through blackberry bushes two miles out of three is hard to follow. Then there was a huckleberry bush reaching to our waists growing thickly upon the ground as tomato vines, curled hard, and stubborn ”

“ I have got the Ague and must quit, and finish in the morning. The Sal-lal Berries is a large, dark blue berry, somewhat resembling the wherttleberries, but as large as four of the latter, grows in clusters like grapes, and are rather sweet in tast, very pleasant, the bush they grow on is an evergreen. They grow much larger on the coast than up here. ”

“ But when we are most busy and hurried, without a moment to loiter in the apple orchard or among the berry bushes, then, quite as well as, if not better than, during our leisure moments, they lay hold upon us with their tiny claws, and cling closely till we set to work to get rid of them. ”

“ Yet they are cultivated after a fashion. Every two or three years a district of these hills is set on fire, and in the burned ground, the next spring, the berry-bushes come up innumerable. The following fall they are loaded so heavily with blueberries that the harvest is gathered with rakes, each of which has a cup underneath it into which the berries fall as the rake is thrust through the bushes. The land is owned by two or three large proprietors, who employ men and women to gather the crop, paying them a few cents a bushel for picking. ”

“ Why, if not for sheer oddity's sake, should any bush in this latitude hold back its blossoms till near the edge of winter? As I looked at the half-grown buds, clustered in the axils of the yellow leaves, they appeared to be waiting for the latter to fall, that they might have the sunlight all to themselves. They will need it, one would say, in our bleak November weather.
Overfull of life as my wild garden patch was, it would not have kept its (human) possessor very long from starvation. One or two barberry bushes made a brave show of fruitfulness ”

“ It gives its first crop in two years; but this is small in quantity, and indifferent in quality. The bush is not in perfection until four or five years after planting, and will then last for an indefinite period. The fruit has the size and appearance of a small cherry. Two seeds are contained in each berry. Each seed is wrapped in a thin paper-like envelope, and both together are covered with another, and then surrounded by a sweet, pleasant-tasting pulp, which is covered with a thin skin. ”

“ The shrubs are planted in rows three or four feet apart and look like a field of currant or gooseberry bushes; at the end of the third year the bushes become large enough to allow of the first picking and in the eighth year the plant is cut down, when new shoots spring up from the old roots. ”

“ So they voted to find and dig up as many berry bushes or wild grape vines or other fruit-bearing plants for the birds as they could find and carry away before supper time.
Consequently, there was quite a brave showing of bushes and vines along the fence line before twilight that evening. One of the girls discovered a small mulberry tree which was taken up with all its wide-spreading roots. But it took the combined help of four scouts to carry it safely from the woodland to the field. ”

“ In this class of plants, the branches generally start close to the ground, and in some cases, a little below the surface of the ground, rising and spreading out in all directions.
The common currant bushes, blackberry bushes, and rose bushes which we see in gardens, are shrubs.
So also are grape-vines, honeysuckles, ivy, and all other creeping vines. These are called climbing plants, because little tendrils or claspers which grow out of their branches, wind around and fasten themselves to any thing in their way. ”

“ He is a little more social now than usual, and I suggest that if he bring blackberry bushes from the field, and set them around the fence, keeping the ground irrigated round the roots, he might have as nice fruit as the cultivated. ”

“ The rake tears the bushes so, and the berries have to be put through a fanning mill twice to free them from leaves and rubbish. This process fits them for the canners who are not as particular as we wish they were.
The blueberry bush is a kind of Indian. It does not take kindly to gardens and other civilized places. It thrives and yields abundantly if given a chance on its native hillsides, and comes up by the million wherever the cutting of the timber lets in the light. ”

“ In most instances, I imagine, our best gardeners rarely trim two bushes exactly alike, but deal with each according to its vigor and natural tendencies; for a currant bush has not a little individuality.
A young bush needs cutting back like a young grapevine, and for the same reason. A grapevine left to itself would soon become a mass of tangled wood yielding but little fruit, and that of inferior quality. In like manner nature, uncurbed, gives us a great, straggling bush that is choked and rendered barren by its own luxuriance. ”

“ Along this path you may have your choice of varieties as you go, from the pale blue ones that grow so very near the earth on their tiny bushes that they seem the salt of it, giving the day its zest, through the low-bush-blacks, crisp with seeds and aromatic in flavor as if smoked with the incense of the sweet-fern, to those other black ones that grow on the high bushes and rightfully take the name of huckleberry. The soil of these sandy hills may be thin and not worth farming, but it produces fruit whose quality puts to shame the product of well-cultivated gardens. ”

“ It is upon these that the fruit is chiefly borne. A bush left to itself is soon a mass of long, slender, almost naked stalks, with a little fruit at the ends. The ideal bush is stocky, open, well branched, admitting light, air, and sun in every part. There is no crowding and smothering of the fruit by the foliage. But few clusters are borne on very young wood, and when this grows old and black, the clusters are small. ”

“ Let bushes grow in the natural way, removing all old, decaying branches, and all suckers that rise too far from the parent-bush, and keep the clusters of bushes and leaves thin enough to allow the sun free access, and prevent continued moist [Pg 167] ure in wet weather, which will rot the fruit, and you will find it the cheapest and best. We have seen quite as large and as fine fruit grow on such bushes, that we knew to be more than twenty years old, as we ever saw of the same variety when cultivated in the tree form. ”

“ The bush is of stiff, erect habit, two to three feet high, a stocky grower and an abundant bearer. The berries vary from one-half to one and one-quarter inches in diameter, are covered with innumerable thorns, scarcely less savage in the green state than those on an ordinary wild bush of this country. When cooked, the prickles soften down to the same consistence as the skin, which is rather thick. ”

“ Then, in the night we wandered abroad finding lily roots, and the sweet ferns, and camas, and mushrooms, with another visit to the river in the early morning and perhaps a trout to wind up with before the sun drove us under cover again. And above all there was the berry-patch.
The mere smell of a berry-patch at the end of summer, when the sun has been beating down all day, so that the air is heavy with the scent of the cooking fruit, is delicious enough, but it is nothing to the sweetness of the berries themselves. ”

“ Cuttings of young shoots having 1 in. of the old wood attached will strike root, but the plant is of very slow growth, and takes at least four years to grow into a good bush. Choice varieties may be grafted or budded on to the common sorts in June or July. To grow Holly from seed, gather the berries when ripe, crush them, and mix them up with a little sandy loam, bury them in a hole 3 ft. deep, and cover with litter. Dig them up and sow them in March. Big bushes are best moved at the end of August, mixing the earth to a puddle before planting. The less pruning they receive the better. ”

“ Look for a bush that is stiff and irregular, generally growing low in closely crowded patches like the blueberry, though at times reaching the height of eight feet. It appears to thrive best and is most often seen in sandy soil, but it will grow in almost any kind and flourish even amid the rocks on a barren hillside. ”

“ In spring the bushes are beautiful, when snowily laden with masses of ragged white flowers; and from June to September they are no less welcome, when abundantly hung with the black berries, which usually have a bloom upon them. These berries are an important article of food among our Western Indians, who make annual pilgrimages to the regions of their growth, gathering and drying large quantities for winter use. The drying they effect by crushing them to a paste, which they spread upon bark or stones in the sun. ”

“ Berries grow in lavish abundance, enough for man and beast with thousands of tons to spare. The woods are full of them, especially about the borders of the waters and meadows where the sunshine may enter. Nowhere in the north does Nature set a more bountiful table. There are huckleberries of many species, red, blue, and black, some of them growing close to the ground, others on bushes eight to ten feet high; also salal berries, growing on a low, weak-stemmed bush, a species of gaultheria, seldom more than a foot or two high. ”

“ The largest I ever saw had a round, slightly fluted trunk nearly four feet in diameter, which at a height of only eighteen inches from the ground dissolved into a wilderness of branches, rising and spreading to a height and width of about twelve feet. In spring every bush over all the mountains is covered with rosy flowers, in autumn with fruit. The red pleasantly acid berries, about the size of peas, are like little apples, and the hungry mountaineer is glad to eat them, though half their bulk is made up of hard seeds. ”

“ Why, there hasn't been time for the bushes to grow. That's always the way with the blueberries, though: There may not have been the ghost of a sign Of them anywhere under the shade of the pine, But get the pine out of the way, you may burn The pasture all over until not a fern Or grass-blade is left, not to mention a stick, And presto, they're up all around you as thick And hard to explain as a conjuror's trick. ”

“ If this is not done the bush will after a little become crowded with branches, and as all branches, old and new, will attempt to bear, you will be pretty sure to have a production of very inferior fruit, since it will be impossible for the bush to perfect all the berries that set and have them come up to the standard of superiority that should govern the grower. ”

“ When a field is left uncultivated, they are the first plants that appear on it; and I frequently observed them in such fields as are annually ploughed, and have corn sown on them. For when these bushes are once rooted, they are not easily extirpated. [163] Such a bush runs out tendrils sometimes four fathoms off its root, and then throws a new root, so that on pulling it up, you meet with roots on both ends. On some old grounds, which had long been uncultivated, there were so many bushes of this kind, that it was very troublesome and dangerous walking in them. ”