18 HISTORY OF FRUITS. 



with it of a brown colour, and it is by the aid of this bark, 

 that our English gardeners are able to supply us with 

 pine-apples, and other fruits peculiar to the hottest 

 climates ; but as our stoves are now successfully heated by 

 steam, we may expect that a less expensive article will be 

 substituted, having witnessed that sea-sand will retain its 

 heat so as to answer the same purpose. 



Even the leaves of this valuable tree are used for the 

 purpose of tanning, and many gardeners prefer them to 

 dung for the purpose of making hot-beds for melons. See 

 the History of Cultivated Vegetables, vol. ii. p. 96. 



In medicine, oak-bark has long been esteemed as a 

 powerful and useful astringent and tonic. It was at one 

 time a celebrated remedy for intermittents, and considered 

 as a good substitute for cinchona ; but it certainly falls 

 much short of that drug in these cases; for agues will 

 often withstand the oak-bark, which readily yield upon 

 administering a few doses of Peruvian bark. It is however 

 an useful astringent in obstinate diarrhoea, and chronic 

 forms of dysentery ; also in leucorrhcea and other chronic 

 serous discharges, depending on debility and relaxations 

 of the secreting vessels.* 



Oak sawdust is a principal ingredient in dyeing fustian ; 

 all the varieties of drabs and browns are made by the aid 

 of oak sawdust. Oak apples are likewise used in dyeing : 

 the black got from them is more beautiful than that ob- 

 tained from galls, but not so durable. 



For the sowing of acorns, we can take no better time 

 than that which Nature directs, and the squirrels, who in 

 all probability were the first planters of our forests, em- 

 ploy. When the fruit is perfectly matured, so that it may 

 be easily taken from the cup, these little animals may 

 be observed to descend from the oak each with an acorn 



* Medical Botany. 



