USES OF WILD PLANTS. 163 



manner, after the fashiop of the Welsh housewives. Let the feins be 

 burnt while green, and make the ashes into balls with a litde water 

 and dry them in the sunshine, and store them up, and yon will be 

 furnished with a soap of excellent quality, which may be kept for any 

 length of lime. The cultivator of newly-reclaimed lands will need 

 no other manure than the fern ashes which remain after he has sup- 

 plied his family with soap — and, in rooting them up, his land will be 

 greatly improved ; or, if the fern be cut when green, and suffered to 

 rot, a greater effect will be produced. Tlie root-stocks of ferns make 

 an excellent mash for pigs. The bracken, Fteris acquilina, which 

 covers thousvands of acres of waste land in this country, and which 

 proves tire best cover for game, might be well employed in this way 

 by cottagers. Considerable quantities of the young shoots are cut in 

 Dean Forest, and used as a mash for pigs ; and a great advantage of 

 this food is, that it comes into use in a season when the cottagers' 

 gardens are not in a condition to supply sufficient for their pigs. The 

 roots of the common brake form an excellent table vegetable, if boiled 

 in the same way as carrots. An excellent faiina may also be pre- 

 pared from fern roots ; and, indeed, the Norwegians, and the natives 

 of Kamtschatka, use large quantities of it in making their bread. In 

 Norway, also, they are used as fodler for sheep, cattle, and goats. 

 The plants are cut and steeped in warm water, and the animals devour 

 it with avidity, and get fat upon it. In Wales it is much used as 

 litter, and to thatch cottages. One very beautiful species, Osimcndia 

 regalis^ yields a very excellent starch ; the roots requiring to be 

 pounded, and steeped in boiling water. Many kinds are used by the 

 tanner in the preparation of kid and cliamois leather. The medical 

 value of the ferns has, like that of most other wild plants, been lately 

 much depreciated. The maiden's hair Adiantum, a very elegant 

 plant, is much used for coughs ; and the Asplenia have been highly 

 esteemed in complaints of the viscera. Newman asserts that F. 

 vulgce is used to a great extent by the elderly women of Herefordshire, 

 as a remedy for hooping-cough ; it is gathered in November, and 

 hung up to dry, and, when used, boiled with coarse sugar. The 

 maiden's hair is distilled with orange-fiower, water and honey by the 

 French, and the product is the well-known confection called capil- 

 laire, a very refreshing summer drink. 



Such are some few of the uses to which our wild plants may be put ; 



we could I'lumerate a thousand others, but space will not permit. 



M 2 



