Edible Berries On the subject of hedgerow berries we are
still being urged—and with wisdom—to collect more and more briar hips. Further study on their chemical make-up has, it seems, enhanced their value as providers of vitamin C and some other properties ; and the campaign in their favour has spread to the American continents. But there are hips and hips. The research chemists appear to have established the fact—to which The Countryman, that excellent green quarterly, bears witness— that north country hips are two or three times as well provided with vitamins as southern hips ; but all are valuable. It is perhaps surprising that the cult of the hip has not been accompanied by the cult of the haw. Haws (un-processed) are much more agreeable to eat off the bush than hips and are full of good food, if not particularly rich in any alphabetical vitamin. Birds on the whole prefer them and our winter thrushes grow fat on them in the hardest weather.
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