BLACKTHORN 55 



as a substitute for tea. Some little while ago large quan- 

 tities were gathered and dried as a commercial speculation, 

 over four million pounds of them being sold in one year ; 

 but it was found that they were being so largely used to 

 sophisticate tea that the Excise authorities took alarm, 

 and the manufacture came to an abrupt end. 



The wood of the blackthorn is very hard and tough ; it 

 is occasionally made into walking-sticks, and in some circles 

 of society a good blackthorn shillelah is considered fully 

 equal, for strengthening an argument, to a crab-tree cudgel. 

 The bark is astringent, and has been found advantageous as 

 a febrifuge. 



The fruit, as our illustration shows, is globular or sHghtly 

 ovoid, in colour purple almost to blackness, but, when ripe, 

 covered with a beautiful violet-coloured bloom. Inviting 

 though it be to the eye, it is found on tasting to be 

 so harsh that one has no inclination to repeat the experience, 

 though after a touch of mellowing frost it loses some- 

 what of this biting acridity. They are at this season 

 gathered by the country folk : they either preserve them 

 or make them into a beverage that is held in consider- 

 able favour in rustic society. The juice expressed from 

 them makes a good marking-ink for linen or woollen, 

 and if a little sulphate of iron be added to it, it has 

 complete permanence.^ 



In excavating the baths at the Roman city of Silchester 

 a great many fruit stones were found in a drain ; amongst 



' The iuice of sloes doth stop the lask and flix, and all other issues of blood, 

 and may very well in vsed in stead of .'\catia, which is a thornie tree growing 

 in iEgypt, very hard to be gotten, and of a decre price, albeit our plums of 

 this countrie are equal vnto it in vertues." — Gerard. 



