THE COLTS-FOOT. JQ9 



surface is more opened, too, and therefore the insects that 

 came late in the autumn, and have survived the winter 

 in their perfect state, as well as the early larva, are 

 more abundant there. There is an early plant there, 

 too, and one which has got credit for many virtues, 

 and actually possesses some of them, the common 

 colt's foot (tussilago vulgaris). On stubble lands, 

 especially where the soil is decomposed clay slate, [it 

 has been said that, it always accompanies coal, and 

 that may be true, but coal does not always accompany 

 it, and therefore its rhabdomantic virtue goes for 

 nothing], the flowers of that plant spot the surface 

 with their delicate yellow tufts, when the snow is just 

 disappearing, and there is not a leaf. In the matter of 

 leaves, indeed, it makes ample amends afterwards ; for 

 where the soil is strong and moist, they attain the size 

 of umbrellas by harvest, and have a fine cotton upon 

 their under sides, which may be separated in quantity, 

 and makes an excellent tinder when impregnated with 

 nitrate of potass ; and the dried leaves have many of 

 the stimulant qualities of tobacco, without any of the 

 narcotic. We might infer, indeed, from the economy 

 of the plant, that there is some use in the leaves inde- 

 pendent of the plant itself, as these continue to grow 

 vigorously and increase in size long after the flower is 

 over and the seed ripened, though they die down in 

 the winter. Coltsfoot enters pretty largely into the 

 pharmacopoeias of the country notables ; and it is pro- 

 bable that it may be quite as efficacious as some of 

 those nostriims which the other notables cry up for a 

 time, and then abandon. The medicines of the fields 

 are, however, like the air of the fields, held in little 

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