t and finest relish among fruits,
and well merits Dr. Boteler's memorable saying, that "doubtless God
could have made a better berry, but doubtless God never did."

On the threshold of summer, Nature proffers us this her virgin fruit;
more rich and sumptuous are to follow, but the wild delicacy and fillip
of the strawberry are never repeated,--that keen feathered edge greets
the tongue in nothing else.

Let me not be afraid of overpraising it, but probe and probe for words
to hint its surprising virtues. We may well celebrate it with festivals
and music. It has that indescribable quality of all first things,--that
shy, uncloying, provoking barbed sweetness. It is eager and sanguine as
youth. It is born of the copious dews, the fragrant nights, the tender
skies, the plentiful rains of the early season. The singing of birds is
in it, and the health and frolic of lusty Nature. It is the product of
liquid May touched by the June sun. It has the tartness, the briskness,
the unruliness of spring, and the aroma and intensity of summer.

Oh, the strawberry days! how vividly they come back to one! The smell
of clover in the fields, of blooming rye on the hills, of the wild
grape beside the woods, and of the sweet honeysuckle and the spiraea
about the house. The first hot, moist days. The daisies and the
buttercups; the songs of the birds, their first reckless jollity and
love-making over; the full tender foliage of the trees; the bees
swarming, and the air strung with resonant musical chords. The time of
the sweetest and most, succulent grass, when the cows come home with
aching udders. Indeed, the strawberry belongs to the juiciest time of
the year.

What a challenge it is to the taste! how it bites back again! and is
there any other sound like the snap and crackle with which it salutes
the ear on being plucked from the stems? It is a threat to one sense
that the other is soon to verify. It snaps to the ear as it smacks to
the tongue. All other berries are tame beside it.

The plant is almost an evergreen; it loves the coverlid of the snow,
and will keep fresh through the severest winters with a slight
protection. The frost leaves its virtues in it. The berry is a kind of
vegetable snow. How cool, how tonic, how melting, and how perishable!
It is almost as easy to keep frost. Heat kills it, and sugar quickly
breaks up its cells.

Is there anything like the odor of strawberries? The next best thing to
tasting them is to s