Serviceberry

“ The huckleberry is a sweet, dark blue berry, that grows on a very delicate low shrub, the blossoms are very pretty, pale pink or greenish white bells, the fruit is very wholesome; it grows on light dry ground, on those parts of the country that are called plains in Canada. The settlers' children go out in parties, and gather great quantities, either to eat or dry for winter use. These berries are a great blessing to every one, besides forming abundant food for the broods of young quails and partridges; squirrels, too, of every kind eat them. There are blackberries also, Lady Mary ”

“ The everbearing strawberry will ripen its fruit at least a week ahead of almost any other berry we have, and then it will continue bearing until the frost kills it. I had at least twenty bushels of fruit from my plants last year, and I secured from one-quarter acre fifty-three cases and sold them at $4.80 a case. They talk about what they can raise in California, but we can do better here, and I believe if you will stick to these three varieties, the Americus, Superb and Progressive, you will not need to plant any other variety. The Americus has the best flavor but it isn't as large. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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." ”

“ It had been arranged that she was to pick thimbleberries, and later on plums at so much a basket and out of her earnings she was to pay for her board. When the fruit was done, if she were satisfactory, she would be paid regular wages as a domestic, that Mrs. Heaslip might not have the work of the farmhouse to do in the winter-time. The berries had been so soaked by the rain that it would take a morning's sunshine to dry them sufficiently for picking. ”

“ In the Champion, we have a late market berry that is steadily growing in favor. On rich, moist land it is almost as productive as the Crescent. The fruit averages much larger than the Wilson, while its rich crimson color makes it very attractive in the baskets. The berries, like the two kinds already named, turn red before they are ripe, and in this immature condition their flavor is very poor, but when fully ripe they are excellent. The transformation is almost as great as in a persimmon. Under generous culture, the Champion yields superb berries, that bring the best prices. ”

“ The brier on which it grows is an annual plant, springing each year from the roots and dying after bearing fruit. The plant is very largely cultivated, bearing larger and more presentable berries, but gaining nothing in flavor and palatability. The berries are generally black when fully ripe, though red during the ripening stage and sometimes when mature. They are eaten raw, stewed, and in pies or “cobblers.” The berry is extensively used for making jams, jellies, and preserves, and for canning purposes. The juice of the berry is used for making a wine, usually with the admixture of sugar. ”

“ Even the train-hands would rebel were they not permitted to tarry long enough to enjoy the one luxury of the place. The delicious berries are supplied by native men and women with wild-looking, swarthy faces, who hand them to the travelers in neat, plain baskets which hold nearly two quarts each. Basket and strawberries together are sold for twenty-five cents. The top layer of the fruit is carefully selected, and most tempting to look upon, the berries being shrewdly "deaconed,"—a fact of which the purchaser becomes aware when he has consumed the first portion. ”

“ It has spread over every section of our vast country, taking kindly to every variety of soil and climate, covering with its robust foliage many thousands of acres, producing tens of thousands of bushels of fruit, crowding our markets with abundant supplies, and [Pg 59] producing profits to its cultivators such as no other strawberry has ever yielded. As a market berry it was quickly recognized as being unsurpassed, nor have its numerous modern rivals been yet able to shake its strong hold upon the public favor. ”

“ To collect so small a berry with facility, and in abundance, the natives cut a rounded tray of thin bark, two or three feet long, and six or eight inches wide, over this they lift up the plant, upon which the fruit grows, and shake the berries into it. When a sufficiency has been collected, the berries are skilfully tossed into the air, and separated from the leaves and dirt. The natives are very fond of this fruit, which affords them an inexhaustible resource for many weeks. In an hour a native could collect more than he could use in a day. ”

“ My wife and Mousie left the table standing, and, hastening to the raspberry field, helped Winnie and Bobsey and the other Bagley child to pick the ripest berries. We all worked like beavers till the vivid flashes and great drops drove us to shelter.
Fortunately, the shower came up slowly, and we nearly stripped the cherry-trees, carrying the fruit into the house, there to be arranged for market in the neat peck-baskets with coarse bagging covers which Mr. Bogart had sent me. The little baskets of raspberries almost covered the barn floor by the time the rain began, but they were safe. ”

“ Thus we continued to pick over our vines from three to four times weekly. As the ripening of the fruit went on, the sight was truly marvellous to look at. When the season was at its height, the ground seemed almost red with berries. Then the famous doctrine of squatter sovereignty was effectually carried out on my premises, for there were twenty girls and boys upon their knees or hams, engaged in picking berries at two cents a quart. Industrious little toilers they were, many of them earning from one to two dollars daily. Some pickers were women grown, some widows, some even aged women. ”

“ In the Far West berries are a much more important element in the commissary of the Indians, probably because they are produced there in an abundance and variety unknown in any other part of the world. The service-berry (Amelanchier Canadensis) grows throughout nearly the entire wooded region west of the Mississippi, not as a tree, but as a shrub, which forms tufts or thickets that in some regions become storehouses of delicious food. ”

“ In after years the rice fields of Georgia, with their embankments and green surfaces, reminded Willis of “the gooseberry pies which formed part of my early education at Andover, and which are among the warmest of my recollections of that classic academy.” “We have fine times picking berries here,” he wrote to his sister Julia. “Every kind grows in profusion in Andover,—raspberries, black, blue, thimble, and whortle berries. The woods are crowded with them. After tea we generally start, and after we have eat enough go and bathe in the Shawsheen, our Andover river.” ”

“ We now have about 150 members, and we have two shipping stations, Deerwood and Aitkin. We market strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, currants, gooseberries, plums, Compass cherries, apples, sweet corn and celery.
We have a nice trade worked up and have little trouble in finding a ready market for any of our products.
It is our aim, as growers, to give our customers all A No. 1 quality. During the berry season we have an inspector whose duty it is to inspect the berries as they arrive at the station and any found to be of poor quality we dispose of locally for canning. ”

“ The overseer's task is a difficult one, for the pickers least given to prayer are oftenest on their knees, crushing the strawberries, and whether they are "long" or short, much fruit is destroyed. North and South, the effort to keep those we employ off the berries must be constant, especially as a long, hot day is waning. Indeed, one can scarcely blame them for "lopping down," for it would be inquisitorial torture to most of us to stoop upon our feet through a summer day. Picking strawberries, as a steady business, is wofully prosaic. ”

“ He now showed a number of the plants in pots, laden with fruit, and such was the size and number of the berries upon each plant that people were astonished, curiosity was excited, and public attention fairly aroused to the examination of the claims of this new strawberry. Intelligent and experienced cultivators of fruit clustered around the stand on which the plants were displayed, and many then united in the opinion that for productiveness, size of berry, firmness of flesh and good flavor, it would surpass any then known variety as a valuable market strawberry. ”

“ I filled her little pasteboard boxes immediately, with the fruit just as picked from the vines. The poor child fairly capered with joy as she witnessed the operation. She saw her fortune in a few quarts of strawberries! I think that as she tripped nimbly through the gate, my gratification at seeing how cheerfully she thus began her life of toil was equal to all that she could have experienced herself.
Before the afternoon was half gone, Lucy surprised us by returning with an empty basket. She had found customers wherever she went, and wanted a fresh supply of fruit. ”

“ From the pioneer time of the Old Southwest to the last frontier of the Far North today, the service berry is cherished alike by white men and Indians; and the red men have woven about it some of their prettiest legends. When June had ripened the tree's blue-black berries, the Back Country folk went out in parties to gather them. Though the service berry was a 38 food staple on the frontier and its gathering a matter of household economy, the folk made their berry-picking jaunt a gala occasion. ”

“ There are doubtless many among the inhabitants of our towns and cities who have never gathered or seen the strawberry in its wild state; and many, very many more who are wholly unacquainted with the peculiar and interesting structure of this fruit and its allies—the raspberry, blackberry, dewberry, and their congeners. ”

“ The service berry in the Willamette Valley grows in all soils, and at altitudes as high as the snow line, bearing a sweetish, pleasant tasting berry about the size of our largest wild cherry; as yet it has not been cultivated with us or much utilized. ”

“ Oaks, elms, and poplars, are seen mingling with birches, willows, and aspens. Several species of indigenous fruit trees were observed by Lucien, among which were crab-apple, raspberry, strawberry, and currant. There23 was also seen the fruit called by the voyageurs “le poire,” but which in English phraseology is known as the “service-berry.” It grows upon a small bush or shrub of six or eight feet high, with smooth pinnate leaves. These pretty red berries are much esteemed and eaten both by Indians and whites, who preserve them by drying, and cook them in various ways. ”

“ The younger portion of the Harvest-throng find abundant employment in searching the hedges for the favourite and refreshing fruit of the Blackberry—and we see them standing in groups in lanes and fields, with their plump, rosy faces dyed, in no very becoming style it is true, with the dark purple juice ”

“ Well, it so happened that the Season was a backward one; and the Fruiterer sends his duty out to his Lordship, saying that he has no ripe Gooseberries, but [288] that of green ones he has a store, to which that unfortunate Nobleman is heartily welcome.
"I'll e'en try one," says my Lord; and from a Punnet they brought him he picks a Green Gooseberry; when, wonderful to relate, it swells in his hand to the bigness at least of an egg-plum, and turns the colour of Blood. ”

“ Another relates that wherever the English on their first arrival penetrated the woods, they came upon plats of ground overgrown with these berries, which were four times larger and much more exquisitely flavored than those they had been accustomed to in England. [76] Among the first plants to spring up in the clearings made around the fort at Jamestown by the first colonists, was the strawberry, [77] and the fruit increased in abundance as the area of abandoned fields grew wider. ”

“ Soon we had a fistful of the delicate plants with their evergreen leaflets and long, golden thread-like roots, that mixed with the red and green of the partridge berry in a finger-bowl makes a cheerful little winter bouquet. And here with the gold thread, about the butt of the pine, was the partridge berry, too, the dainty vines strung with the beads which seemed to burn holes in the snow that had covered and banked the tiny fires. ”