ARBUTUS. 37 



" Others, with forward zeal, weave hurdles, and a pliant bier of 

 arbute rods, and oaken twigs, and with a covering of boughs shade 

 the funeral bed high-raised." DAVIDSON'S TRANSLATION. 



Horace, too, speaks of it, and celebrates its shade : 



" Nunc viridi membra sub arbuto 

 Stratus." 



It is mentioned by Ovid in the tenth book of the Meta- 

 morphoses : 



" Pomoque onerata rubenti 



Arbutus :" 

 " And the arbutus heavy with its ruby fruit." 



And again, in the first book, where he speaks of it as 

 affording food to man in the golden age. 



Millar, after giving some of these quotations, adds, " I 

 hope we shall no more have the classical ear wounded by 

 pronouncing the second syllable of Arbutus long, instead 

 of the first." This little ebullition of impatience, natural 

 enough to a person who knew the right pronunciation, 

 would have pleased his friend Dr. Johnson, who speaks 

 of him somewhere as " Millar, the great gardener." 



Some species of the Arbutus, from being mere shrubs, 

 are better adapted for the present purpose than the 

 beautiful one called the Common Strawberry-tree, which 

 is the best known in our gardens ; as the Painted-leaved, 

 the Dwarf, and the Acadian Arbutus. These trees mostly 

 like a moist soil, but the Acadian prefers a wet one : it is 

 a native of swampy land, and if grown in a pot should be 

 kept very wet; the earth, also, should be covered with 

 moss, the better to retain the moisture. The other spe- 

 cies should be watered every evening when the weather 

 is dry, but not so liberally. When the frosts are severe, 

 it will be more secure to shelter them ; for though they 

 will bear our winters when in the open ground, they are 



