278 SYLVA FLORIFERA. 



year. On the cultivation of foreign heaths, 

 we shall only observe, that it depends more 

 on care than art. 



The British Botanist admits but of four dis- 

 tinct native species of heath, each of which 

 has its variety ; and almost every part of 

 Europe abounds with this denoter of a poor 

 soil. It is common in all the temperate parts 

 of the vast Russian empire ; and although it 

 is only regarded for making brooms in warm 

 climates, the inhabitants of the bleak and 

 barren mountains of Scotland, and other 

 northern countries, make it subservient to a 

 great variety of purposes. The poorer inha- 

 bitants cover their huts or cabins with it instead 

 of thatch, and it is often used to form the walls 

 of their dwellings, by laying it alternately 

 with a cement of earth. 



It often forms the bed of the hardy High- 

 lander. In most of the western isles they dyc^ 

 their yarn of a yellow colour, by boiling it 

 in water with the green tops and flowers of 

 this plant ; and woollen cloth, boiled in alum 

 water, and afterwards in a strong decoction of 

 the tops, comes out a fine orange colour. In 

 some of these islands they tan their leather in 

 a strong decoction of it. They also use it in 

 brewing their ale, in the proportion of one 

 part malt to two of the young tops of 

 14 



