_The leaves are small, somewhat oval, and rolled back at the edges, and
the stem is thread-shaped and trailing. The blossoms are small, but
beautiful, each consisting of four distinct petals rolled back to the
base, and of deep flesh colour._
The collecting of cranberries is a tiresome and disagreeable employment, as
each berry, which seldom exceeds the size of a pea, grows on a separate
stalk, and the morasses in which they grow are frequently very deep.
Cranberries are much used in the northern counties, and great quantities of
them are bottled and sent to London. So considerable a traffic in this
fruit is carried on, that, at Longtown in Cumberland, the amount of a
market day's sale, during the season for gathering it, is stated by Dr.
Withering to be from 20_l._ to 30_l._ Cranberries begin to ripen about the
month of August, and continue in perfection for some weeks.
They are much used in confectionary, but particularly in tarts; their rich
flavour being very generally esteemed. The usual mode of preserving them is
in dry bottles, corked so closely as to exclude all access of the external
air: some persons, however, fill up the bottles with spring water. Others
prepare this fruit with sugar. From the juice of cranberries, mixed with a
certain portion of sugar, and properly fermented, a grateful and wholesome
wine may be made. The inhabitants of Sweden use this fruit only for the
cleaning of silver plate.
A considerable quantity of cranberries is annually imported, into this
country, from North America and Russia. These are larger than our own, of a
different species, and by no means of so pleasant flavour.
124. There are three other species of fruit belonging to the cranberry
tribe, which grow wild in this country, on heaths or in woods. These are
BILBERRIES, or BLEA-BERRIES (_Vaccinium myrtillus_), which are occasionally
eaten in milk, and in tarts, and which afford a violet-coloured dye: GREAT
BILBERRIES (_V. uliginosum_), which, in France, are sometimes employed to
tinge white wines red: and RED WHORTLE-BERRIES (_V. vitis idæa_), which,
though not of very grateful flavour, are occasionally used in tarts, rob,
and jelly.
125. _The COMMON HEATH, or LING_ (Erica vulgaris), _is a well-known
plant, with numerous small rose-coloured flowers, which grows wild on
heaths and mountainous wastes, in nearly every part of England._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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