MEDICINAL VIRTUES. 



hadder, the bright colors of their plaids shall not be- 

 wray them." 



Scott beautifully pictures a scene of this nature in 

 "The Lady of the Lake :" 



A various scene the clansmen made: 

 Some sat, some stood, some slowly strayed ; 

 But most with mantles folded round, 

 Were couched to rest upon the ground, 

 Scarce to be known by curious eye 

 From the deep heather where they lie, 

 So well was matched the tartan screen 

 With heath-bell dark and brackens green. 



One or two writers state that in some of the West- 

 ern Islands of Scotland the inhabitants tanned their 

 leather in a strong decoction of Heather. Sowerby in 

 his "Useful Plants of Great Britain" says (with regard 

 to this tanning process) : "The shoots are employed 

 for tanning leather, and though certainly inferior to 

 many articles of the kind, when properly prepared they 

 form a good substitute for oak bark and other astring- 

 ents. In the year 1776 the Irish Parliament valued 

 this application of the plant so highly that a grant of 

 seven hundred pounds was made to a person who in- 

 vented a new mode of using heath in the preparation 

 of leather." 



Medicinal Virtues 



The old English herbals contain several refer- 

 ences to the medicinal properties of Heather. "The 

 tender tops and flowers, saith Dioscorides, are goode 



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