686 ARBORETUM AND FRUTICETUM. PART III. 



but is wanting in Siberia. According to Pallas, it loves a wet, nitrous, and 

 salt soil, flowering about the end of April. It is not a native of North 

 America, but has been introduced there ; and, according to Pursh, is now 

 often found in hedges, particularly in Pennsylvania. It is also found in the 

 north of Africa, and in the west and east of Asia. In Europe, it ceases to 

 appear about Upsal, in Sweden ; and, in Britain, it ends in Wales, with t/Hex 

 europae v a; but, enduring a moister climate, it is found in highland valleys, 

 where the furze does not grow. (JFatew.) It does not appear to have been 

 particularly noticed by the Greeks and Romans ; but it has a place in all 

 general works on plants, from the time of Fuchsius to the present day. Ac- 

 cording to some, it is the parent of the bullace plum (P. insititia) ; and, 

 according to others, of P. domestica and all its varieties : with which last 

 opinion we coincide. 



Properties, Uses, $c. The wood is hard, and in colour resembles that of 

 the peach, though without its beauty : it takes a fine polish ; but it is so apt 

 to crack, that little use can be made of it, except for handles for tools, teeth 

 for hay-rakes, swingles for flails, and walking-sticks. The wood weighs, when 

 dry, nearly 52 Ib. per cubic foot. The branches, from being less spreading 

 than those of the common hawthorn, make better dead hedges than those 

 of that species ; and, for the same reason, they are particularly well adapted 

 for forming guards to the stems of trees planted in grass fields or in parks, 

 to protect them from cattle. They are in general use for this purpose in 

 France. They are also used as a substitute for stones and tiles in draining ; and, 

 formed into faggots, they are sold for heating bakers' ovens, and for burning 

 lime or chalk, in kilns, &c. The living plant cannot be recommended for hedges, 

 on account of the rambling habit of its roots, and the numerous suckers they 

 throw up ; and because it is apt to get naked below, from the tendency of the 

 shoots to grow upright and without branches. These upright shoots make 

 excellent walking-sticks, which, accordingly, throughout Europe, are more fre- 

 quently taken from this tree than from any other. They are furnished with 

 sharp thorns, which produce numerous thickly set knots. " The bark " as 

 Cobbett observes in his Woodlands, " which is precisely of the colour of the 

 horsechestnut fruit, and as smooth and bright, needs no polish ; and, orna- 

 mented by the numerous knots, the stick is the very prettiest that can be con- 

 ceived." (Woodlands, 511.) Leaves of the sloe, dried, are considered to form 

 the best substitute for Chinese tea which has yet been tried in Europe ; and 

 they have been extensively used for the adulteration of that article. They 

 possess a portion of that peculiar aromatic flavour which exists in Spiraea 

 Ulmaria L. (the meadow sweet), Gaulthen'a procumbens, and some other 

 plants, and which resembles the more delicate perfume of green tea. Cattle of 

 every kind, and more especially sheep and goats, are fond of the leaves of the 

 sloe thorn, both in a green and in a dried state. Dr. Withering remarks 

 that a wound from the thorns of the sloe is much more difficult to heal 

 than one from the spines of the common hawthorn ; whence he concludes 

 that there is something poisonous in the former. The fruit of the sloe is so 

 harshly sharp and austere as not to be eatable till it is mellowed by frost. 

 Its juice is extremely viscid ; so that the fruit requires the addition of a little 

 water in order to admit of expression. The juice of the ripe fruit is said to 

 enter largely into the manufacture of the cheaper kinds of port wine ; and, 

 when properly fermented, it makes a wine strongly resembling new port. In 

 France, a drink is made by fermenting the fruit with a certain quantity of 

 water : it is acid and astringent, more especially if the fruit has been gathered 

 before it is quite ripe. The habitual use of this drink is said to cause ob- 

 structions in the abdominal viscera. In France, the unripe fruit is pickled in 

 salt and vinegar, as a substitute for olives ; and, in Germany and Russia, the 

 fruit is crushed, and fermented with water, and a spirit distilled from it. In 

 Dauphine, the juice of the ripe fruit is used for colouring wine. Letters 

 marked on linen or woollen with this juice will not wash out. Medicinally, the 

 bark is considered a febrifuge; and the leaves as an agreeable and useful astrin- 



