the field berry. The former is as wild
as a partridge. It is found in open places in the woods and along the
borders, growing beside stumps and rocks, never in abundance, but very
sparsely. It is small, cone-shaped, dark red, shiny, and pimply. It
looks woody, and tastes so. It has never reached the table, nor made
the acquaintance of cream. A quart of them, at a fair price for human
labor, would be worth their weight in silver at least. (Yet a careful
observer writes me that in certain sections in the western part of New
York they are very plentiful.)

Ovid mentions the wood strawberry, which would lead one to infer that
they were more abundant in his time and country than in ours.

This is, perhaps, the same as the alpine strawberry, which is said to
grow in the mountains of Greece, and thence northward. This was
probably the first variety cultivated, though our native species would
seem as unpromising a subject for the garden as club-moss or
wintergreens.

Of the field strawberry there are a great many varieties,--some growing
in meadows, some in pastures, and some upon mountain-tops. Some are
round, and stick close to the calyx or hull; some are long and pointed,
with long, tapering necks. These usually grow upon tall stems. They
are, indeed, of the slim, linear kind. Your corpulent berry keeps close
to the ground; its stem and foot-stalk are short, and neck it has none.
Its color is deeper than that of its tall brother, and of course it has
more juice. You are more apt to find the tall varieties upon knolls in
low, wet meadows, and again upon mountain-tops, growing in tussocks of
wild grass about the open summits. These latter ripen in July, and give
one his last taste of strawberries for the season.

But the favorite haunt of the wild strawberry is an uplying meadow that
has been exempt from the plow for five or six years, and that has
little timothy and much daisy. When you go a-berrying, turn your steps
toward the milk-white meadows. The slightly bitter odor of the daisies
is very agreeable to the smell, and affords a good background for the
perfume of the fruit. The strawberry cannot cope with the rank and
deep-rooted clover, and seldom appears in a field till the clover has
had its day. But the daisy with its slender stalk does not crowd or
obstruct the plant, while its broad white flower is like a light
parasol that tempers and softens the too strong sunlight. Indeed,
daisies and strawberries are general