Box Edgings 99 



Box hedges were much esteemed in England — 

 so says Parkinson, to dry linen on, affording the 

 raised expanse and even surface so much desired. It 

 can always be noted in all domestic records of early 

 days that the vast washing of linen and clothing 

 was one of the great events of the year. Sometimes, 

 in households of plentiful supply, these washings 

 were done but once a year ; in other homes, semi- 

 annually. The drying and bleaching linen was an 

 unceasing attraction to rascals like Autolycus, who 

 had a "pugging tooth" — that is, a prigging tooth. 

 These linen thieves had a special name, they were 

 called " prygmen " ; they wandered through the 

 country on various pretexts, men and their doxies, 

 and were the bane of English housewives. 



The Box hedges were also in constant use to hold 

 the bleaching webs of homespun and woven flaxen 

 and hempen stuff, which were often exposed for 

 weeks in the dew and sunlight. In 17 10 a reason 

 given for the disuse and destruction of " quicksetted 

 arbors and hedges" was that they "agreed very ill 

 with the ladies' muslins." 



Box was of little value in the apothecary shop, was 

 seldom used in medicine. Parkinson said that the 

 leaves and dust of boxwood " boyld in lye" would 

 make hair to be " of an Aborne or Abraham color" 

 — that is, auburn. This was a very primitive hair 

 dye, but it must have been a powerful one. 



Boxwood was a firm, beautiful wood, used to 

 make tablets for inscriptions of note. The mottled 

 wood near the root was called dudgeon. Holland's 

 translation of Pliny says, " The Box tree seldome 



