BEARDED OAT-GRASS. 



BEECH. 



ralis). They are found in moist pastures and 

 near the sea, in muddy salt-marshes, but are 

 not often met with. 



BEARDED OAT-GRASS. See Witn OATS. 



BEAR'S-FOOT. See HELLEBORE. 



BEAST (Su. Goth, beest, Ger. bestie, Fr. besfe, 

 Lai. bestia). A term generally applied to all 

 such quadrupeds, or four-footed animals, as are 

 made use of for food, or employed in labour; 

 but farmers apply the term more particularly 

 to neat cattle. 



BED-STRAW, YELLOW, LADIES' (Ga- 

 lium reraw). It is sometimes termed checse- 

 renning and maid's hair, or petty mugurt <>r 

 mn^irort, and yellow gnose-grru.i. A perennial 

 weed, flowering from June till October, more 

 common in the hedges and waysides than in 

 th' iH.ily of pastures. Its slender stalks rise 

 to about a foot in height. The leaves come 

 out in whorls, eight or nine together. They 

 are long, narrow, and of a green colour. Two 

 little branches generally come out near the 

 top of the stalk, supporting a considerable 

 number of small golden yellow flowers, con- 

 sisting of one petal divided into four parts, and 

 succeeded by two large kidney-shaped seeds. 

 The flowers of this plant are said to coagulate 

 boiling milk, and the better sorts of Cheshire 

 cheese are sometimes prepared with them. A 

 kind of vinegar is stated to have been dis- 

 tilled from the flowering tops. The French 

 prescribe them in epileptic and hysteric cases; 

 but they are ot no value. Boiled in alum- 

 water, they tinge wood yellow. The roots dye 

 a fine red not inferior to madder, and are used 

 for this purpose in the island of Jura. Sheep 

 and goats eat the plant ; horses and swine re- 

 fuse it ; cows are not fond of it. Smith enu- 

 merates seventeen species of bed-straw : 



I. C i oss- wort bed-straw, or mugweed; 2. White 

 water bed-straw ; 3. Rough heath bed-straw ; 

 4. Smooth heath bed-straw; 5. Rough marsh 

 bed-straw; 6. Upright bed-straw; 7. Gray 

 spreading bed-straw ; 8. Bearded bed straw ; 

 9. Warty-fruited bed-straw ; 10. Roush-fruited 

 corn bed-straw, or three-flowered goose-grass ; 



II. Smooth-fruited corn bed-straw ; 12. Least 

 mountain bed-straw; 13. Yellow bed-straw; 

 14. Great hedge bed-straw ; 15. Wall bed-straw ; 

 16. Cross-leaved bed-straw; 17. Goose-grass, 

 or cleavers. (Hurt. Gram. Wob. p. 329; Smith's 



!'/ora, vol. i. pp. 199 210.) 



Dr. Darlington, in his Flora Cestrica, enu- 

 merates twenty-one species of this plant found 

 in Chester county, Pennsylvania. Among 

 these are the wild madder (Galium tinctorium), 

 sometimes called Dyer's goose-grass, frequent 

 in low grounds. The roots of this and another 

 species of galium (boreale') are used by the 

 Indians in dying their porcupine quills, and 

 other ornaments, of a red colour. Wild liquo- 

 rice (Galium Circxzans), frequent in rich 

 woodlands and having a sweet taste. Common 

 cleavers, Robin-run-the-hedge, or Yellow goose- 

 grass (PI. 10, g), a troublesome weed. 



BEECH (Fagus sylvatica, Sax. bece or 6oc). 

 The beech is one of the handsomest of our 

 native forest trees, and in stateliness and 

 grandeur of outline vies even with the oak. 

 Its silvery bark, contrasting with the sombre 

 trunks of other trees, renders its beauties 



conspicuous in our woods ; while the grace- 

 fully spreading pendulous boughs, with their 

 glossy foliage, mark its elegance in the park 

 or paddock. There is only one species, the 

 difference in the wood arising from the effects 

 of soil and situation. The beech is a native 

 of the greater part of the north of Europe and 

 America. The finest beeches in England are 

 said to grow in Hampshire. The tree is also 

 much grown in Wiltshire, Surrey, Sussex, 

 and Kent. The forest of St. Leonard's, near 

 Horsham, Sussex, abounds with noble beech 

 trees. The shade of the beech tree is very 

 injurious to most sorts of plants that grow 

 near it, but it is believed by the vulgar to be 

 very salubrious to human bodies. The wood 

 of this tree, which is hard, and rather hand- 

 some, Brande tells us (in his Diet, of Science, 

 p. 139), is brittle and perishable, and liable to 

 become worm-eaten. Phillips admits, that it 

 is subject to worms, when exposed to the air 

 without paint; but says, that the timber of 

 the.se trees, in point of actual utility, follows 

 next to the oak and the ash, and is little inferior 

 to the elm for water-pipes. It is used, he adds 

 (Hist, of Fruits, p. 60), by wheelwrights and 

 chairmakers, and also by turners for making 

 domestic wooden ware, such as bowls, shovels, 

 churns, cheese-vats, dressers, shelves for dai- 

 ries, &c. it being as white as deal, free from 

 all disagreeable smell, and without any incon- 

 venient softness. Bedsteads and other furni- 

 ture are often made with this timber ; and no 

 wood splits so fine, or holds so well together, 

 as beech, so that boxes, sword-sheaths, and a 

 variety of other things, are made from it. The 

 baskets called pottles, in which strawberries 

 or raspberries are usually sold in London, are 

 made from beech twigs and cuttings, and the 

 wood is also much in use for poles, stakes, 

 hoops, &c. Near large towns it is in great 

 demand for billet wood. It affords a large 

 quantity of potash and good charcoal. It is 

 manufactured into a great variety of tools, for 

 which its great hardness and uniform texture 

 render it superior to all other sorts of wood. It 

 is not much used in building, as it soon rots in 

 damp places, but it is useful for piles in places 

 which are constantly wet. The purple and 

 copper beeches seen in plantations are seed- 

 ling varieties of Fagus sylvatica. The beech- 

 tree thrives best and attains to a great size on 

 clayey loams incumbent on sand: silicious 

 sandy soils are also well adapted for its 

 growth, and it will prosper on chalky, stony, 

 and barren soils, where many other timber 

 trees will not prosper ; and it is found to resist 

 winds on the declivities of hills better than 

 most other trees. Where the soil is tolerably 

 good, beech will become fit to be felled in 

 about twenty-five years. The tree bears lop- 

 ping, and may, therefore, be trained to form 

 very lofty hedges. 



The leaves of the beech, gathered in autumn 

 before they are much injured by the frost, are 

 said to make better mattresses than straw or 

 chaff, as they remain sweet and continue soft 

 for many years ; they are also profitably em- 

 ployed in forcing sea-kale, asparagus, <fcc. in 

 hot-beds. The beech is propagated by sowing 

 the nuts, or mast, which should be gathered 

 O 157 



