A CO UN. 3 



writes, " Oke whose fruite we call an Acorn or an Eykorn 

 (that is ye corn or fruit of an Eike,) are harde of diges- 

 tion and norishe very much, but they make raw humores. 

 Wherefore we forbid the use of them for meates." 



This species of mast was also eaten by the ancient 

 Britons. The Druids taught that whatever grew on the 

 oak was sent immediately from heaven ; and nothing was 

 held so sacred by them as the misletoe of an oak, which 

 it was unlawful to cut except with a golden hook. 



The Persians, and the Massagetse, also thought the 

 misletoe something divine. 



The study of botany, and the encouragement given to 

 agricultural and horticultural pursuits, have so wonder- 

 fully improved the state of this country, that what in 

 early ages a king would have feasted on, the beggar now 

 refuses ; and the acorn is scarcely known as affording 

 nourishment to the human species, even among the wan- 

 dering vagrants who pitch their tattered tents, and cook 

 their scanty fare beneath the branches of the trees that 

 produce them. 



Acorns continued to be of so much importance for 

 many ages after they had been relinquished as the food 

 of man, that a failure of them frequently caused a fa- 

 mine ; as the swine which our woods and forests main- 

 tained, formed a principal part of the food of our ances- 

 tors. The author of the Saxon Chronicle, after describing 

 the extraordinary famine and mortality of the year 1116, 

 records particularly the failure of masts in that year. 



We find that as early as the end of the seventh cen- 

 tury our Saxon ancestors had a law and particular direc- 

 tions given them by King Ina, respecting the fattening of 

 swine in woods, since his time called pawnage or pannage. 

 In a succeeding century, Elfhelmus reserves the pan- 

 nage of two hundred hogs for his lady, in part of her 



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