The Milan exchange. (Milan, Gibson County, Tenn.) 1874-1978, 1877-07-05
Wild Strawberries.


berry has critics-people who think that
DIR. Whately was altogether too effusive
in his opinion that Doubtless God
might have made a better berry, but
doubtless he never did," Now, Whate-
ly was strong in his logic, and his pos
tulate without doubt concerned the
ideal, the perfect, strawberry. He could
not have safely made any correspond
ing dictum about man, observe, because
he could not have produced the ideal
man in sufficient numbers to have him
count in support of the postulate. But
he could, and we presume did, instantly
back up his statement about the straw
berry with lordly dish of the fruit,
each individual specimen more delicious
than the one which preceded it. If,
after such feast as that, any one should
remain critical, it would be plain that
nothing short of ambrosia would do for
his palate.
Still there are odds in Strawberries,
and have been these 500 years that we
know of their cultivation. My lord
Bishop of Ely, in Henry VS. time, if we
may believe Shakespeare, thought that
the strawberry was best wild:
"The strawberry grows underneath the net
tie,
| And wholesome berries thrive and ripen
best,
] irl,l hH-f rrtit Of hos al
And, after long experience of Will
sons Albany Agriculturist, and what
not else in the way of derived varieties,
we agree with the prelate who had so
well noticed the way of nature with the
strawberry. Civilization costs as well
as makes character, so that there are
things in the savage finer than in. the
scholar; and the strawberry has paid
for its culture and bulk with the loss of
that wild delicacy and fragrance of the
fields, for which there there is no com
pensation in tape-measure records of
circumference.
And in the old country days the straw
berry season was marked by fine, liber-
al delights in Natures wide garden of
the hill-sides or the meadows, which
are worth more in the remembrance
than any thing that can be got out of
the rich patch among the corn and
beans and tomatoes, where the fatted
berry of the fruiterer grows. The dew
yet bows down the long grasses at the
edge of the thicket, and sparkles in
splendid color from the upper half of
the hill in the sunlight when you reach
the field. The cows look up from their
eager morning cropping, and slowly
disappear. The wood-thrush MARBLES,
| and the Phebe-bird calls in a curious,
interested tone which finally becomes
eXasperating-it is so obtrusive, and
amounts to nothing, after all. The
bobolink may perhaps fling himself off
the apple-tree in delirium OF glee, and
there will surely be an undertOne from
that bouncing basso, the bumble-bee, as
he leases the clover-heads and butter
cups.
Your basket does not fill very fast,
especially if you conscientiOusly refuse
to pick the stems, with all their burden
of green berries on-even if you don't
come for the second crop, others may.
The wild strawberry is not always obvi-
Gus; it is shy, given to hiding under a
red clover or dock, or at the edges of
the ledge, and ever and anon you gather
one of the tiny fruit and find only red
leaf in your fngers-a veritable fairy
trick, such as might well happen to you
in this wild scene. When you lay hands
upon a mammoth of the fields, berry
actually as much as half an inch in
diameter, then what a sense you feel of
treasure trOve, and admiration for the
benignity of Nature in so prosperous a
growth! On the strength of finding a
half-dozen such in succession, YOU ven
ture to taste the ripest one, and, if your
palate is blessed with memory, us
many palate is not, you will never in
after years match that perfect melting
union of perfume and flavor, and aroma
of the clean earth and wild grass, free
airs and woodland odors, blent with the
essence of honeyed spices. Nature,
where she has her way, is wont to in
dulge in such PROJECTIONS.
As the heat thickens, the murmurous
pinewoOd invites TO rest on the brown
carpet its fallen needles form. The
slender, elegant woodberry one finds
here beside the path-a curious invalid
look it has, and its taste is lightly acid
and attracts one more than its sharp
neighbor, the bright young winter-green.
At the borders of the wood the noun
tain laurel blooms, each bush a glorious
bouquet of pink and white, fit for a kings
parterre. Thus seated and surrounded,
with all things rejoicing in the height
of the years beauty and life without,
you may feel a deeper feeling, yet one
not inharmonious with the generafhap-
piness, stir and strengthen in your heart
and mind.
There is a great deal more to be got
from strawberry picking than the ber-
ries-for is there not the bird-song and
the insect chirp and chatter, the dew
and the sun, the waving grass with its
daisies, the grapevine over the gray
ledge, the laurel, with so many free,
pure, worshipful thoughts in them all,
that are as good food as the best of ber-
ries? These are the angels that talked
with men in the fields of old, and told
them of God and themselves. There is
indeed no priest or shrine wanted for
you, if you discover, such ways as this,
/ that
imam in the bush with God may meet"
Springfield Republican.
Bulgarian Women.