FOOTNOTES:
[36:1] "Gardener's Chronicle."
[36:2] "Although beer is now seldom made from birchen twigs, yet it is by no means an uncommon practice in some country districts to tap the white trunks of Birches, and collect the sweet sap which exudes from them for wine-making purposes. In some parts of Leicestershire this sap is collected in large quantities every spring, and birch wine, when well made, is a wholesome and by no means an unpleasant beverage."—B. in The Garden, April, 1877. "The Finlanders substitute the leaves of Birch for those of the tea-plant; the Swedes extract a syrup from the sap, from which they make a spirituous liquor. In London they make champagne of it. The most virtuous uses to which it is applied are brooms and wooden shoes."—A Tour Round My Garden, Letter xix.
BITTER-SWEET, see [Apple (22)].
BLACKBERRIES.
| (1) | Falstaff. | Give you a reason on compulsion!—if reasonswere as plentiful as Blackberries, I would giveno man a reason upon compulsion, I.[37:1] |
| 1st Henry IV, act ii, sc. 4 (263). | ||
| (2) | Falstaff. | Shall the blessed sun of heaven prove a micherand eat Blackberries? |
| Ibid. (450). | ||
| (3) | Thersites. | That same dog-fox Ulysses is not proved wortha Blackberry. |
| Troilus and Cressida, act v, sc. 4 (12). | ||
| (4) | Rosalind. | There is a man . . . . hangs odes upon Hawthornsand elegies on Brambles. |
| As You Like it, act iii, sc. 2 (379). | ||
| (5) | The thorny Brambles and embracing bushes, As fearful of him, part, through whom he rushes. | |
| Venus and Adonis (629). | ||
I here join together the tree and the fruit, the Bramble (Rubus fruticosus) and the Blackberry. There is not much to be said for a plant that is the proverbial type of a barren country or untidy cultivation, yet the Bramble and the Blackberry have their charms, and we could ill afford to lose them from our hedgerows. The name Bramble originally meant anything thorny, and Chaucer applied it to the Dog Rose—