152 OUR COMMON FRUITS. 



which, they are readily eaten by cattle, sheep, or goats. 

 The bark and roots yield a yellow dye, and possess an 

 astringent quality so powerful that they are not only used 

 medicinally, but also, in Poland, in the manufacture of 

 leather the skins being tanned and dyed yellow by one 

 and the same process. It might well, therefore, seem 

 strange that a plant with so many recommendations, both 

 as regards use and beauty, should be so seldom met with 

 in our gardens, and have been almost extirpated from 

 even our fields ; but better reason can be shown for the 

 disfavour into which the barberry has fallen than can be 

 adduced in every case for the neglect of native plants a 

 great objection to its being planted near houses being the 

 very offensive odour of the flowers. Phillips mentions 

 having had a monster barberry-bush in his garden, which 

 towered 20ft. high, spreading its branches over a circum- 

 ference of 60 ft., and which must therefore have presented 

 a very beautiful appearance when decked with either 

 flowers or fruit ; but the smell of the blossoms, fragrant 

 at first as that of cowslips, changed ere they faded into a 

 putrid kind of scent, so exceedingly disagreeable that for 

 about a fortnight no one could walk in the shrubbery 

 anywhere near it. Still, for hedges in the open country 

 it might have held its place, notwithstanding a temporary 

 unpleasant odour, but that another and more serious 

 objection has led the farmer to look on it as a foe to be 

 carefully rooted out of his domain ; for he bas found that 

 wherever the barberry grows near corn, there the corn 

 becomes specially liable to be affected with disease. Du 

 Hamel treated this belief with scorn, as a mere vulgar 

 prejudice; other scientific writers have followed in his 

 wake ; and Dr.. Greville, in an elaborate work on Grypto- 

 gamia, proved satisfactorily enough that the mildew so 

 often found on the barberry (and which, under the micro- 

 scope, presents an extraordinarily beautiful appearance) 

 is distinctly different from any of the fungi usually found 

 on disease'd corn; but, nevertheless, practical agricul- 

 turists, both in this country and in America, still main- 

 tain the popular notion on the subject to be an incontro- 

 vertible fact. A most intelligent farmer assured the 



