ACINUS. 



ACORNS. 



Dr. F. Simon has lately described a similar 

 concretion found in the horse of a carrier, 

 which weighed 1 Ib. 



" It is evident that the seeds of corn could 

 not be formed without phosphate of magnesia, 

 which is one of 1 their invariable constituents ; 

 the plant could not under such circumstances 

 reach maturity."] 



ACINUS. The stone of any berry. 



ACONITE (Gr. axoxmv ; Fr. aomit). Pro- 

 perly the herb wolfsbane, but commonly used 

 in poetical language for poison in general. It 

 is often met with, in this sense, in the works 

 of Dryden, Shakspeare, Granville, and others. 

 See WOLFSBANE. 



ACORNS. The seed or fruit of the oak ; 

 fficepn, Saxon, from ac, an oak, and cojin, corn 

 or grain ; that is, the grain or fruit of the oak. 



The Greeks had a tradition, that the oak was 

 the first created tree; and hence, having a 

 similar idea as to the Arcadians being the first 

 created men, they compared them to the oak. 

 Virgil tells us to 



" Thresh the wood, 



For masts of oak, your father's homely food." 



And Ovid corroborates their use : 



"Content with food which nature freely bred, 

 On wildings and on strawberries they led, 

 Cornels and bramble berries gave the rest, 

 And fallen acorns furnish'd out a feast." 



Turner, who is the earliest English author 

 on this subject, writes, " Oke, whose fruit we 

 call acorn, or an eykorn (that is, the corn or 

 fruit of an cyke), are hard of digestion, and 

 nourish very much, but they make raw hu- 

 mores. Wherefore, we forbid the use of them 

 for meates." They were long the food of the 

 early Greeks, as they are of the lower order 

 of Spaniards, even to this day ; but then it 

 must be remembered, that the acorns of Spain 

 are more sweet and nutritious than those of 

 England. And yet the early Britons certainly 

 eat them : their priests, or Druids, taught them, 

 that every thing that was produced on the oak, 

 even to the parasitical mistletoe, was of hea- 

 venly origin, a superstition which was com- 

 mon, also, to the Persians and the Massagetoe. 



The Saxons valued them chiefly for fatten- 

 ing swine. Their king Ina, in the seventh 

 century, gave them a law, respecting the fat- 

 tening of their swine in the oak woods, which 

 privilege was called a pawnage, or pannage. 



The oak is often mentioned in Holy Writ, as 

 the oak of Ophra, Judges vi. 1 1 ; of Shechem, 

 Gen. xxxv. 4 ; and of Deborah's Grave, Gen. 

 xxxv. 8. See OAK. 



Although acorns are said to have been the 

 primitive food of mankind, at present they are 

 only used in raising young oaks, or for the 

 purpose of fattening deer and hogs, for which 

 last they are said to be a very proper and use- 

 ful kind of food. 



In Gloucestershire, according to Mr. Mar- 

 shall, they are in high esteem among the far- 

 mers, who seem to be as anxious about them 

 as their apples. They consider them as the 

 bes means of fatting hogs, and think they 

 maOT the bacon firm, and weigh better than 

 bean-fed bacon. The price of acorns there is 

 from Is. 6d. to 2s. per bushel, according to the 

 season and the price of beans. Few are sold, 

 24 



however; every farmer collecting his own, or 

 letting his pigs feed upon them. 



Some care is necessary to be taken when 

 hogs are fed upon acorns, for otherwise they 

 will be subject to constipation, and the disease 

 called the garget. These may, however, be 

 avoided, by mixing laxative substances with 

 them, and not allowing them to have too many 

 at a time ; at first a few, twice a day is often 

 enough ; afterwards three times a day. The 

 hogs, while they eat this food, should not be 

 confined to the stye, but be suffered to run at 

 large ; for if their liberty be too much abridged, 

 they never thrive well, or grow fat on this sort 

 of food. 



In Hertfordshire, and the New Forest in 

 Hampshire, it is no uncommon thing, with the 

 management above directed, and the assistance 

 of a little wash, and a few grains now and 

 then, for a farmer to kill several hogs in a 

 season, which weigh from eight to ten score, 

 and sometimes even more. Hogs fed in this 

 way make very good well-flavoured meat ; but 

 it is not thought by some so fine as when they 

 are taken up, and four or five bushel of pease 

 or barley-meal given to each to complete their 

 fattening. 



" The pigs are gone acoming" is a very com- 

 mon provincialism (see Mr. Wilbrahani's Che- 

 shire Glossary} ; and the expression is also con- 

 firmed by Shakspeare's " full-acom'd boar." 



Acorns are sometimes given to poultry, and 

 would be found an advantageous food for them, 

 when dried and ground into meal. 



Tusser, speaking of acorns, says, 



" Some left among bushes shall pleasure thy swine, 

 For fear of a mischief, keep acorns from kine." 



They are considered injurious to cows, because 

 they swell in their stomachs, and will not 

 come up to the cud again ; which causes them 

 to strain as it were, to remit, and to draw their 

 limbs together. 



In medicine, a decoction of acorns is reput- 

 ed good against dysentaries and colics. Pliny 

 states, "that acorns beaten to powder, and mixed 

 with hog's lard and salt, heal all hard swell- 

 ings and cancerous ulcers ; and when reduced 

 into a liniment, and applied, stays haemor- 

 rhage." (Phillips Fruits.) 



When employed for raising oak timber from, 

 the method of planting the acorns, which is 

 practised by some, is to make holes to receive 

 them, at the distance of 12 or 15 inches from 

 each other, in an oblique direction, so as to 

 raise up a tongue of turf under which they 

 are to be deposited, and where they require no 

 farther kind of nursing. In the course of from 

 twenty to thirty years, in this mode of planting, 

 the spot, it is said, will be fit to be coppiced, 

 that is, partially cut down as underwood, leav- 

 ing the most healthy plants. The thinnings 

 may be sold for railing, and generally fetch a 

 good price. A better method is, however, to 

 dibble them on land that has been properly 

 prepared by ploughing or digging, which may 

 be done by women, three or four within a 

 I square yard ; or they may be sown broad-cast, 

 i when the surface is fine and moist, and rolled 

 in with a light roller. The former is probably 

 1 the better practice. They may likewise be set 

 about the middle of November, by a land chain. 



