210 HISTORY OF FRUITS. 



country, and much enjoyed by the rustics; it is thus* 

 beautifully described by Thomson : 



" Ye swains, now hasten to the hazel hank, 

 Where down yon dale the wildly winding brook 

 Falls hoarse from steep to steep. In close array, 

 Fit for the thickets and the tangling shrub, 

 Ye virgins, come. For you their latest song 

 The woodlands raise ; the clustering nuts for you 

 The lover finds amid the secret shade ; 

 And where they burnish on the topmost bough, 

 With active vigour crushes down the tree ; 

 Or shakes them ripe, from the resigning husk, 

 A glossy shower." 

 Evelyn tells us, that " these nuts, being fully ripe, and 

 peeled in warm water, as they blanch almonds, make a 

 pudding, very little, if at all, inferior to that our ladies 

 make of almonds." 



These nuts are not much used in medicine, but the 

 cream of them is good for the stone, and heat of urine : 

 emulsions made of them with mead, are recommended for 

 old dry coughs. 



Quercentan gave a dram of the powder of nut-shells, 

 mixed with an equal quantity of prepared coral, in a glass 

 of the water of carduus benedictus, or corn poppy, in the 

 pleurisy. 



The wood of the hazel-tree is used for making hoops 

 for casks, hurdles, crates, springles to fasten down thatch, 

 fishing-rods, &,c. ; it is also burnt for charcoal, and it was 

 formerly much used for making gunpowder. 



Plantis edurce coryli nascuntur: Virgil. 



" Hazels from sets and suckers take " 



from whence they thrive very well ; but it is recom- 

 mended to plant well-preserved nuts in the month of 

 February, to obtain the finest hazel-trees. 



