OBSERVATIONS ON VEGETABLES 369 



surmount it all : are therefore proper to mend thin places in 

 tall hedges. WHITE. 



SYCAMORE. May I2th. The sycamore or great maple 

 is in bloom, and at this season makes a beautiful appearance, 

 and affords much pabulum for bees, smelling strongly like 

 honey. The foliage of this tree is very fine and very orna- 

 mental to outlets. All the maples have saccharine juices. 

 WHITE. 



GALLS OF LOMBARDY POPLAR. The stalks and ribs of 

 the leaves of the Lombardy poplar are embossed with large 

 tumors of an oblong shape, which by incurious observers 

 have been taken for the fruit of the tree. These galls are 

 full of small insects, some of which are winged, and some 

 not. The parent insect is of the genus of cynips. Some 

 poplars in the garden are quite loaded with these excres- 

 cences. WHITE. 



CHESTNUT TIMBER. John Carpenter brings home some old 

 chestnut-trees which are very long ; in several places the wood- 

 peckers had begun to bore them. The timber and bark of 

 these trees are so very like oak, as might easily deceive an 

 indifferent observer, but the wood is very shaky, and towards 

 the heart cup-shaky (that is to say, apt to separate in round 

 pieces like cups), so that the inward parts are of no use. 

 They are bought for the purpose of cooperage, but must make 

 but ordinary barrels, buckets, etc. Chestnut sells for half the 

 price of oak; but has sometimes been sent into the king's 

 docks and passed off instead of oak. WHITE. 



LIME BLOSSOMS. Dr. Chandler tells that in the south of 

 France an infusion of the blossoms of the lime-tree, tilia, is 

 in much esteem as a remedy for coughs, hoarsenesses, fevers, 

 etc., and that at Nismes he saw an avenue of limes that was 

 quite ravaged and torn to pieces by people greedily gathering 

 the bloom, which they dried and kept for these purposes. 



Upon the strength of this information we made some tea of 

 lime blossoms, and found it a very soft, well-flavored, pleas- 

 ant, saccharine julep, in taste much resembling the juice of 

 licorice. WHITE. 

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