Not so fast before you hack down those blackberry vines to smooth out the landscape.

A recent article in Bay Journal, a free publication of the Chesapeake Media Service "to inform the public about issues and events that affect the Chesapeake Bay," said the blackberry has remarkable healing powers. Liza Field, who writes for the environmental journal, said to think of the blackberry as a "purple pill" that "can prevent and heal cancer."

Field cites research from Ohio State University noting that "The common, wayside blackberry has been found to prevent or shrink colon, esophageal, breast, cervical and lung cancer tumors." Who wouldn’t go for that?

The downside, she notes, is that the common blackberry patches where generations of youth picked berries by the quart, sold them for $1, and got a good case of chiggers, are going the way of the dinosaur. Americans have become accustomed to getting all their food at the grocery store, and h...