Southern planter : devoted to agriculture, horticulture, and the ...

"bush bhielierry, V. corymbosn, vrhich is a very
large shrub, benrinp; a fine fruit. This, next
to the V. resinosum, is the most valuable spesies,
3. V. disororphum, the black bilberry,
resembling the last in all respects, except that
its fruit is smaller, and black like that of the
common whortleberry'.
There is no tribe of plants that runs into so
many varieties. There are no less than five or
six intermediate varieties betvreen the low blueberry
(Y. tencllum) and the high blueberry
(V. corymbosa) ; and the black bilberry, corresponding
in size with the last, subdivides it-
self into several distinct varieties of all sizes,
down to a dwarf species, as minute as the low
blueberry. All these differ also very materially
in their quality, the best comparing with the
poorest, as the Baldwin apples compare with
the common fruit for the cider mill. With regard
to the color of the different berries, it may
be remarked, that although there are bilberries
which are of a jet and glossy black, there is no
whortleberry which is decidedly blue, like the
low blueberry.
It would be impossible to estimate the value
of these fruits to all classes of our inhabitants;
but it may be safely asserted, that were the
cherry and the whortleberry, with all their varieties,
to become extinct, the absence of the
latter would be the most painfully felt by the
majority of our population. We have learned
from Europeans to set a higher comparative
value upon the cultivated fruits, even those
which are equall^^ perishable, because the western
Europeans have no whortleberries, and
have never learned to prize them. " In Scot-
THE SOUTHERN PLANTER.
land,'' said a company of little Scotch girls
whom I met in a whortleberry pasture, " we
have no wild fruits ; all our fruits are in gardens."
In this country, where whortleberries
are so common and so abundant as to be found
in all wild lands that are not too deeply wooded,
these fruits are indeed one of our staple
productions, of vastly greater value to us than
the cranberry, though the latter, being' a less
perishable fruit, is made an article of commerce
and is more profitable to the individual owner
of the lands that produce it. But for the space
of two months of the year, from the middle of
July to the middle of September, millions of
bushels of whortleberries are consumed in the
New England States, and are as great a luxury
in their season as any fruit that cun be
named.
A fruit seems to be valuable to the public in
proportion as it can be made an article of commerce.
There is some fallac}^ ho\v^ver, in this
mode of reckoning its value. If a farmer owns
a cranberry meadow, that produces an annual
crop of one hundred and fifty bushels, on the
average, from wliich he obtains a clear annual
profit of two hundred dollars, it must be admitted
that this fruit is of more value to him
than a whortleberry pasture that would produce
double this quiintity of fruit. lie gathers,
packs into barrels, and sells the former, with a
certainty of profit, and without danger of loss;
while the latter, if gathered and sold in the
market, would but poorly remunerate him for
the labor and expense of gathering it. But
were the value of the two kinds of fruit measured
by his own and his family's consumption
of them, the whortleberry pasture would be
more valuable than the cranberry meadow, because
his family would consume a greater
quantity of whortleberries and blueberries than
of cranberries. In a commercial sense, and
considered with reference to the gains of the
proprietor, the cranberry is the most valuable
fruit ; but in a political sense, and considered
with reference to the public, the whortleberries
are the most valuable, and probably more so
than any other equally perishable fruit which.
the country produces.
People have always been deceived by measuring
the general value of an article by its com-
mercial value. Hence the whortleberry pas-
tures are called waste lands, which . are worth
nothing at all except for pasturage. But were
all these waste lands deprived of their produce
of fruit, the want of it would be a grievous affliction
to the community. How many indigent
families depend on them for their whole supply
of summer fruit I and how many earn their
livelihood, during the whortleberry season, by
gathering these berries and carrying them to
market! How many boys are prevented from
robbing the orchards of cherries, pears and
early peachers, by the opportunity of obtaining
fruit in the whortleberry pasture ! The
robin, the wax-wing, and other birds that consume
our cherries, are diverted from the orchard
and the garden by a good suppl};- of blueberries
in the neighborhood ; and our farmers
would save depredations upon their trees, in
considerable measure, by cultivating the earli-
est varieties of the high blueberr}", by the sides
of their fences and stone walls, instead of vainly
attempting to keep these borders free from
weeds and brambles. Boston Callivoior.
From the Ayn. Farmers' Mas^azine.
Trees and Fruit Buds vs. Cold Water.
Mr. Editok :—I may not be regarded as a
" careful observer," but I will nevertheless attempt
to give my views on the causes that kill
fruit trees and fruit buds. Now, I may err in
what I shall advance on this subject, for it is a
theme upon which many singular opinions can
be put forth, and yet all of tbera may look
more or less plausible.
In the county in which I live, (and it is more
or less so in all the Northern States,) we often,
in the winter months, have very cold weather,
particularly, you know, in January and February.
The bud of the peach tree and other fruit
trees sometimes expands in the fall, so that it
is made more or less forward. Well, now, the
cold weather of January comes on ; mercury