234 NATURAL HISTORY 
While on the subject of rural economy, it may 
not be improper to mention a pretty implement of 
housewifery that we have seen nowhere else; that 
is, little neat besoms which our foresters make 
from the stalks of the polytricum commune, or great 
golden maiden-hair, which they call silkwood, and 
find plenty in the bogs. When this moss is well 
combed and dressed, and divested of its outer skin, 
it becomes of a beautiful bright chestnut colour, 
and, being soft and pliant, is very proper for the 
dusting of beds, curtains, carpets, hangings, &c. 
If these besoms were known to the brush-makers 
in town, it is probable they might come much in 
use for the purpose above mentioned.* 
LETTER XXVIII. 
Selborne, Dec. 12, 1775. 
Dear Sir,—WeE had in this village, more than 
twenty years ago, an idiot boy, whom I well re- 
member, who, from a child, showed a strong pro- 
pensity to bees ; they were his food, his amusement, 
his sole object. And as people of this cast have 
seldom more than one point in view, so this lad ex- 
erted all his few faculties on this one pursuit. In 
the winter he dozed away his time, within his fa- 
ther’s house, by the fireside, in a kind of torpid 
state, seldom departing from the chimney corner ; 
but in the summer he was all alert, and in quest of 
his game in the fields, and on sunny banks. Hon- 
* A besom of this sort was to be seen in Sir Ashton Lever’s 
museum. 
