Thoreau relates that he once thought of whortleberrying as an occupation
for a livelihood. This was said in a quaint and paradoxical humor, but
there are multitudes who can sympathize with the feelings that prompted
his remark. As a quiet outdoor amusement, it is not surpassed either by
angling or botanizing; and I cannot see why the whortleberry field
should not have its Izaak Walton as well as the lily-pond or the
trout-stream. The freedom enjoyed in the open pasture, the simple and
honest people whom we meet there, the tiresome, but still agreeable and
emulative task of picking the fruit, are only a fraction of our
enjoyments. The chirping of various insects, and their constant
sportiveness among the bushes; the motions of birds and the plaintive
melody of the wood-sparrow, which is tuneful nearly the whole month of
August,—prepare us to be cheerful and delighted with all things. The
cattle feeding carelessly upon the hillsides, the scattered groups of
trees and the cool shadows they cast upon the green turf, the sweetness
of the air, our unrestrained rambling, the precipitous rocks that
intercept our way only to disclose a bower of raspberries protected by
their walls, the mossy seats under umbrageous pines, the countless wild
flowers on every knoll, the pleasant sensation of rest after weariness
and of coolness after the heat of exercise and weather, all combine to
render the whortleberry pasture a field of delight surpassing all that
is written of gardens of orange and myrtle.
The whortleberry is peculiarly an American fruit; though a few species
are common in Middle and Northern Europe, they are in no part of the
world so abundant as in North America. The whortleberry tribe of plants
form a conspicuous feature of New England landscape, especially near the
coast. No single species has been domesticated, though any one of them
would well reward the labor of the cultivator if the fruit could not be
obtained from the fields. Their fruit is well known to the inhabitants
of the Eastern States. Very little has been written upon it, and few
persons are aware of its importance to the inhabitants of North America.
Botanists make no generic distinction between the whortleberry and the
blueberry; but we may distinguish the two at once by their different
flavor, and not by their color. The whortleberry is less acidulous, less
mucilaginous, and contains a harder seed than the blueberry. The flowers
of the two species differ as widely as their fruits: those of the
blueberry are large and white; those of the whortleberry are greenish,
tipped with red, smaller and more contracted in the mouth. There is no
family of plants that runs into a greater number of varieties in a wild
state; but I have never seen one that seemed to possess the characters
of the blueberry and whortleberry combined. With regard to their colors
it may be remarked, that while there are blueberries which are black,
there is no whortleberry which is purely blue.
It may truly be asserted that if the cherry and the whortleberry, with
all their varieties, were to become extinct, the want of the latter
would be most painfully felt by the mass of our population. We were not
taught by the Europeans to appreciate the value of our wild fruits. “In
Scotland,” said one of a company of Scotch girls whom I met in a
whortleberry field, “we have no wild fruits. All our fruits are in
gardens.” In this country, where whortleberries are so common as to be
found in all wild lands that are not densely wooded, their fruit
constitutes one of our staple productions, of greater value to us than
even the cranberry, except as an article of export. During about three
months, from the first of July to the last of September, millions of
bushels of whortleberries are consumed in this part of the country.
People are often deceived by measuring the importance of any article
according to its commercial value. Hence the whortleberry pastures are
called “waste lands.” But were these lands deprived of their products of
wild fruit, the want of it would be a grievous affliction to the
community. How many poor families earn their livelihood in summer by
gathering whortleberries for the market! How many delightful excursions
does this fruit-gathering annually afford to the children and youths of
our land! The robin, the waxwing, and other birds that consume our
cherries, would be diverted from the orchard and the garden by a good
supply of fruit from the bushes of an adjoining field; and our
cultivators might prevent their depredations by planting the different
species by the sides of their fences and in all open situations which
are not adapted to tillage.
As an object in the landscape and a field for the botanist and student
of nature the whortleberry pasture is worthy of study and full of
attractions. This scenery, with all the spontaneous mapping of its
beds of shrubbery, its groups of trees, its tussocks of mosses and
ferns, its little green hollows spangled with flowers, and its
projecting rocks covered with brambles, all intersected widely by the
smooth greensward, is peculiar to New England. In the Southern States
the whortleberry-bushes are more promiscuously scattered, and are not
seen in this delightful grouping, forming with the trees, fruits, and
flowers a true symbol of the beneficence of nature. A genuine
whortleberry pasture is one of the most beautiful of gardens,—a modern
Vale of Tempe, a true Eden,—inasmuch as it is without culture; and
abounds from early spring till waning autumn in the most interesting
shrubs and flowers of our clime; in August and September sparkling
with clusters of shining black and azure berries, and possessing a
value which only a New-Englander knows how to prize.
The whortleberry pasture consists chiefly of upland, extending out
occasionally into a level meadow, but generally of a hilly and uneven
surface, covered with groves and coppice. The pasture must have been fed
many years by cattle to acquire its distinguishing features. Without the
grazing of these animals the ground would be evenly covered with vines
and bushes. The cattle, while feeding upon the grass, consume many of
the young plants which have not become woody, and in their irregular
course gradually produce this grouping in a manner which is entirely
inimitable by art. Hence in an old field the scattered beds of
shrubbery, with greensward between them, might be compared to a map of
islands, the grass being represented on the map by the water and the
bushes by the land; the greensward sometimes widening into a broad
expanse of verdure, and then beautifully intersected by intricate masses
of shrubbery.
In the lands surrounding the older townships only do we see the
whortleberry pasture in the perfection of this picturesque grouping,
laid out according to the geometry of nature. In the new settlements the
bushes are mixed with trees and stumps in the clearings, and have not
acquired any arrangement. But if a whortleberry field has long been
pastured by cattle that seldom browse upon the shrubs, the different
kinds of vegetation stand in beautiful groups of a thousand various
forms, like the figures on tapestry. The rocks that lift up their gray
heads, sometimes with smooth flat surfaces, sometimes in lofty
protuberances, covered with liverworts and patches of variegated lichens
and mosses, and fringed on their edges with diminutive shrubs, form no
unimportant part of this peculiar scenery. In every old pasture the
different kinds of shrubs are more or less distinctly arranged into
groups; some, for example, consisting chiefly of bayberry, others of
roses or perhaps of brambles. But in general the plats consist of a
promiscuous variety of species, in which some one predominates. One of
the most common of these social plants is the sweet-fern, universally
prized for its fragrance, at the very name of which we are inspired with
pleasant recollections of youthful wanderings. The lambkill is
especially prone to form exclusive assemblages, and the most beautiful
individuals, when in flower, are generally on the outside of the group.
But there is no end of the smaller plants that spring up everywhere,
some in the open space, others under the protection of a tuft of
sedge-grass or a broad-leaved fern. The sweet-scented pyrola is abundant
in all shady thickets, and the cymbidium and arethusa decorate the low
grounds among the nodding panicles of quaking-grass and the spreading
flowers of meadow-rue. The loosestrife, with its long pyramidal spikes
of yellow flowers, is always conspicuously grouped in the low grounds,
side by side with similar plats of low swamp-roses or crimson-spiked
willow herb. But the most attractive flower in the whortleberry pasture
is the red summer lily,—the cynosure of the happy children who assemble
there, the queen of the meadow, and the delight of every rambler in the
coppice.
The man who thinks of nature only as a field for the display of
magnificent art may sneer at these rustic scenes and their native
ornaments. But pride cannot make unadorned nature contemptible, nor can
the grandeur of a princely estate deprive its occupants, if their
culture equals their wealth, of the interest with which they behold a
field covered with spontaneous vegetation, or a simple rustic farm. From
the opening of spring until the fall of the leaf, the whortleberry
pasture is a garden full of the fairest flowers and the most healthful
fruits. And if Great Britain’s isle had been covered with
whortleberries, like our New England hills, these fruits would have been
celebrated in English poetry, like the fruit of the vine and the olive
in the poetry of Greece and Rome.