THE HORSETAIL. 43 



the former exhibited but a circumference of three 

 inches, the latter have actually a diameter of no 

 less than five or six inches,* a circumstance which 

 leaves the balance of size still considerably in favour 

 of the fossil plants. 



It is, however, with our more diminutive British 

 species that we have now to deal; with the "Dutch 

 rushes," " pewterwort," " shave grass," or "joints," 

 of our different rural districts. Most pathetically 

 the author of "Adam in Eden, or the Paradise of 

 Plants," -f- laments that "country housewives" no 

 longer scour their pewter, brass, or wooden vessels, 

 with the flinty stems of these plants ; mourning 

 that "that piece of thriftiness, with many others, 

 is laid aside, which might be profitably revived if 

 they knew it." But we could tell him of farmers' 

 wives, in Wales, at least, and very probably else- 

 where, who still retain both the knowledge and the 

 practice ; we could shew him, were he still alive, 

 wooden pails, snowy as the milk they are to contain, 

 ranged in certain sunny court-yards, and daily scoured 

 with the Rliawn y march, just as were their ances- 

 tors if pails can be supposed to have a genealogy 

 in the days of old Gerarde, and long before. Nor, 

 in the higher branches of mechanical art, is the 

 horsetail without its use. Formerly, no comb- 

 maker, metal-worker, or cabinet-maker, could com- 

 plete his work without Dutch rushes to polish it ; 

 and even yet, with the assistance of the manifold 

 improvements with which science is daily lessening 



* " Annales des Sciences Naturelles," November, 1828. 

 t William Coles, the herbalist. 



