180 ENGLISH BOTANY. 



wliicli infests the timber. Large quantities of aider timber arc consumed in making 

 herring-barrels, and some by the turner and cai'penter, but it is inferior for their 

 purposes to many of our native woods. The bark on the young wood is powerfully 

 astiingent, and is employed by tanners, and the young shoots are used both for 

 tanning and dyeing red, brown, and yellow, and, in combination with copperas, to 

 dye black. The catkins dye green, and the female catkins are used by fishermen to 

 sustain their nets above Avater instead of cork. In " Hall's Travels in Scotland," the 

 author says that the country people in the Highlands make their own shoes, and, to 

 avoid the tax on leather, privately tan the hides with the bark of birch and alder. The 

 fresh wood dyes a snuff colour, and the bark, dried and powdered and mixed with 

 logwood, bismuth, &c., yields the colour called bone de Paris. It is said that the 

 Laplanders masticate the bark, and with the saliva so coloured stain their leather 

 garments red. In France the small roots are split and worked into baskets, and the 

 knotty parts of the larger roots are used for inlaying cabinet-work. The leaves are 

 tised in medicine as detersive, and a decoction of them as a gargle for diseases of the 

 throat. Pennant mentions that at one time the boughs were spread over the fields in 

 the summer, leaving them there during the winter to rot, and in the following March 

 the undecayed parts were cleared off, and the ground ploughed for a crop of corn. 

 He also writes of strewing " the leaves and young shoots on the floors of houses to 

 f.ttract fleas, which are said to be entangled in the tenacious liquor as birds are by 

 birdlime." 



Mr. Loudon tells us that the chief use of the alder is as coppice-wood, to be cut 

 down every five or six years, and made into charcoal for the gunpowder manufacturers. 

 As an ornamental tree much cannot be said in favour of the alder. Du Hamel observes 

 that no cattle will ever touch the leaves of the alder as long as they can get anything 

 else to eat. It is a good tree for parks, and also for hedges ; and he adds that it 

 will form very good avenues in situations exposed to cattle. Gilpin says, " He who 

 would see the alder in perfection must follow the banks of the Mole in Surrey through 

 the sweet vales of Dorking and Mickleham into the groves of Esher. The Mole, indeed, 

 is far from being a beautiful river ; it is a quiet and sluggish stream ; but what beauty 

 it has it owes greatly to the alder, which everywhere fringes its meadows, and in many 

 places forms very pleasing scenes, especially in the vale between Box Hill and the high 

 grounds of Norbury Park." Sir T. D. Lauder says, " The alder is always associated in 

 our minds with river sceneiy, both of that tranquil description most frequently to be 

 met with in the vales of England, and with that of a wilder and more stirring cast, 

 which is to be found among the glens and deep ravines of Scotland." 



Homer, Virgil, and other poets of antiquity mention the alder. In the " Odyssey " 

 we read : — 



" In living rills a gushing fountain broke ; 



Around it and above for evergreen 



The bushy alders form'd a shady scene." 



And acrain : — 



" "Where the silver alders, in high arches twined. 

 Drink the cool stream, and tremble in the wind." 



The frequent mention of the alder as forming the earliest boats for man suggests 

 the idea that possibly a hollow alder falling into the stream on the banks of which it 

 grew may have given rise to. the first idea of a boat. 



Our own poet Spenser mentions the alders on the banks of the Mulla in his " Colin 

 Clout's Come Home Again : " — 



