Kindly Fruits
The kindly fruits of the earth, if that means wild fruits, are peculiarly abundant this year, though many of the cultivated fruits are sparse. I write after feasting on a bowl of wild strawberries. They are in abund- ance, and I hold that it would be well worth the while of most gardeners to establish them in a half-wild, that is unweeded, part of the rough garden. With me they appeared of their own accord on a heap of earth and rejected iris roots. Even intruding nettles did not prevent them bearing fruit. The neighbouring common will certainly carry a very full harvest of the wild raspberry. The orchard crops are strangely patchy. Blossom was exuberant and conditions suggested that everything was favourable for the setting of fruit ; but some of the trees with the best show of blossom are almost empty of fruit for reasons that remain obscure. As for my own experience, I have exactly one fruit tree, and one only, that always, without any exception, bears a heavy crop, and that is a Morella cherry. Unlike most sorts of cherry it is self-fertile, and again unlike other cherries is not popular with birds.
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