The berry picking season begins "'long about knee-deep in June" with the first wild strawberries. It does not end till the last cranberry is harvested on the eve of Thanksgiving Day at the end of the drowsy Indian summer. There is money to be earned at this occupation wherever there is ambition to overcome difficulties and force of character enough to step aside from the beaten paths. Fortunately berries are ripe in vacation time. For some people berry picking has almost if not quite the fascination of fishing. It lacks the objectionable features of hunting, fishing and trapping. Guns, tackle, and traps are unnecessary in this gentler sport. No costly tools are required. A light pail, flaring somewhat at the top, is a good receptacle. A wire bent into an S-shaped hook is handy to swing the pail over the forearm while the ambidextrous picker almost doubles the day's harvest if the fruit is extra plentiful.
There is hardly a state in the Union which has not plenty of wild fruits. The young citizens of each state should know these fruits and make the most of them. Some states or regions have fruits peculiar to themselves. Wouldn't it be worth while for the domestic science or cookery teacher in a country school to show her pupils how to utilize these home products? We hear talk about the cost of materials for use in classes in cookery. To let our wild fruits go to waste is poor economy whichever way we look at it. Wouldn't you, if you live in northern Michigan, like to exchange a pot of thimbleberry jam for one made in North Carolina from persimmons? Or if you live in Montana would you exchange buffalo berry marmalade with a Florida friend for guava jelly or preserved cumquats?
WILD RASPBERRIES
Just the other day a girl from the shore of Lake Superior told me of a camping trip on a part of the lake shore inaccessible except by water. A storm on the lake kept them from going home when they had expected so they gathered raspberries and canned and jammed them till their sugar gave out, then until every available cooking utensil, even the coffee pot, was full and the supply of berries was as unlimited as ever. These great, luscious fruits, she said, were as big as the end of her thumb, and fairly falling off the bushes with the weight of juice.
Doesn't it make your mouth water? The pickers who live near the woods up there bring berries to town in milk pails. The fruit box may be more elegant, but there is a bountiful sound about the milk pail that takes my fancy. Of course, one gets scratched while berry-picking; but in what a good cause. Is there something wrong about boys and girls who prefer boxed berries and smooth hands to wild fruits and scratches? There are thousands of dollars wasted every year that might be working on some boy's or girl's schooling, just because nature's crop of raspberries isn't half harvested.
Wild raspberries should be canned, jellied, or jammed by the regulation methods. With a good oil stove all the work can be done in the open air.
THIMBLEBERRY
Do you know the thimbleberry? Some call it the flowering raspberry. You will know by its shape and general look that it is a cousin to the black raspberry although it is flatter, seedier, and more sharply acid. It grows on a bush or shrub somewhat like a raspberry, but its leaves are broad, like grape leaves. Instead of thorns its twigs are clothed with sticky hairs. The colour of the fruit is pinkish purple.
Thimbleberries grow often along woods margins, just back of the fringe of wild red raspberries. You are lucky if you get two cupfuls of the thimbleberries while your companion is picking two quarts of the raspberries. Yours pack more closely and the fruit is not so abundant.