ECONOMICS OF THE HEATHER 



PROBABLY no plant has been put or is better 

 adapted to so many utilitarian purposes as the 

 Heather. It has been correctly stated that to 

 the inmates of the Scottish shieling Heather stands 

 in much the same relation for its economic uses as 

 does the bamboo to the Gond or Mandalay. Force of 

 circumstances led to the discovery of most of these 

 uses. The hardy Highlanders covered their cabins 

 with Heather instead of thatch, or else twisted it into 

 ropes, and bound down the thatch with these ropes 

 in a kind of latticework. They also made the walls 

 of their dwellings with alternate layers of Heather 

 and a sort of cement made of black earth and straw. 



Pennant remarks of the houses in lona: 

 "Houses are mostly very mean, thatched with straw 

 of bear pulled up by the roots, and bound tight on 

 the roof by ropes made of heath." 



Boswell thus describes such houses in "John- 

 son's Journey of a Tour to the Hebrides" : "They (the 

 houses) are thatched, sometimes with straw, some- 

 times with heath, sometimes with fern. The thatch 

 is secured by ropes of heath ; and to fix the ropes there 

 is a stone tied to the end of each. These stones hang 

 around the bottom of the roof, and make it look like 

 a lady's hair in papers ; but I should think that, when 



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