686 ARBORETUM AND FRUTICETUM. PART III. 
but is wanting in Siberia. According to Pallas, it loves a wet, nitrous, and 
salt soil, flowering about the end of April. It is not a native of North 
America, but has been introduced there; and, according to Pursh, is now 
often found in hedges, particularly in Pennsylvania. It is also found in the 
north of Africa, and in the west and east of Asia. In Europe, it ceases to 
appear about Upsal, in Sweden; and, in Britain, it ends in Wales, with U‘lex 
europe‘a; but, enduring a moister climate, it is found in highland valleys, 
where the furze does not grow. (Watson.) It does not appear to have been 
particularly noticed by the Greeks and Romans; but it has a place in all 
general works on plants, from the time of Fuchsius to the present day. Ac~ 
cording to some, it is the parent of the bullace plum (P. insititia); and, 
according to others, of P. doméstica and all its varieties: with which last 
opinion we coincide. 
Properties, Uses, §c. (The wood is hard, and in colour resembles that of 
the peach, though without its beauty: it takes a fine polish; but it is so apt 
to crack, that little use can be made of it, except for handles for tools, teeth 
for hay-rakes, swingles for flails, and walking-sticks. The wood weighs, when 
dry, nearly 521b. per cubic foot. The branches, from being less spreading 
than those of the common hawthorn, make better dead hedges than those 
of that species ; and, for the same reason, they are particularly well adapted 
for forming guards to the stems of trees planted in grass fields or in parks, 
to protect them from cattle. They are in general use for this purpose in 
France. They are also used asa substitute for stones and tiles in draining; and, 
formed into faggots, they are sold for heating bakers’ ovens, and for burning 
lime or chalk, in kilns, &c. Theliving plant cannot be recommended for hedges, 
on account of the rambling habit of its roots, and the numerous suckers they 
throw up; and because it is apt to get naked below, from the tendency of the 
shoots to grow upright and without branches. These upright shoots make 
excellent walking-sticks, which, accordingly, throughout Europe, are more fre- 
quently taken from this tree than from any other. They are furnished with 
sharp thorns, which produce numerous thickly set knots. “ The bark” as 
Cobbett observes in his Woodlands, “ which is precisely of the colour of the 
horsechestnut fruit, and as smooth and bright, needs no polish; and, orna- 
mented by the numerous knots, the stick is the very prettiest that can be con- 
ceived.” (Woodlands, § 511.) Leaves of the sloe, dried, are considered to form 
the best substitute for Chinese tea which has yet been tried in Europe; and 
they have been extensively used for the adulteration of that article. They 
possess a portion of that peculiar aromatic flavour which exists in Spire‘a 
Ulmaria L. (the meadow sweet), Gaulthéria proctiimbens, and some other 
plants, and which resembles the more delicate perfume of green tea. Cattle of 
every kind, and more especially sheep and goats, are fond of the leaves of the 
sloe thorn, both in a green and in a dried state. | Dr. Withering remarks 
that a wound from the thorns of the sloe is much more difficult to heal 
than one from the spines of the common hawthorn; whence he concludes 
that there is something poisonous in the former. The fruit of the sloe is so 
harshly sharp and austere as not to be eatable till it is mellowed by frost. 
Its juice is extremely viscid ; so that the fruit requires the addition of a little 
water in order to admit of expression. The juice of the ripe fruit is said to 
enter largely into the manufacture of the cheaper kinds of port wine; and, 
when properly fermented, it makes a wine strongly resembling new port. In 
France, a drink is made by fermenting the fruit with a certain quantity of 
water: it is acid and astringent, more especially if the fruit has been gathered 
before it is quite ripe. The habitual use of this drink is said to cause ob- 
structions in the abdominal viscera. In France, the unripe fruit is pickled in 
salt and vinegar, as a substitute for olives ; and, in Germany and Russia, the 
fruit is crushed, and fermented with water, and a spirit distilled from it. In 
Dauphiné, the juice of the ripe fruit is used for colouring wine. Letters 
marked on linen or woollen with this juice will not wash out. Medicinally, the 
bark is considered a febrifuge; and the leaves as an agreeable and useful astrin- 
