THE HAWTHOKN. 101 



twigs and killing the young buds : but the opposite side 

 flourishes with tolerable luxuriance. ^ 



The stock of the Thorn is employed not only for graft- 

 ing varieties of its own species, but also, and with great 

 advantage, for several of the garden fruits. 



" Man does the savage Hawthorn teach 

 To bear the Medlar and the Pear ; 

 He bids the rustic Plum to rear 

 A noble trunk and be a Peach." — Cowley. 



The leaves, like those of the Beech and some other 

 trees, are invested with a short downy covering while 

 young, which afterwards almost entirely disappears, leaving 

 a bright and glossy surface. They are said to be used not 

 unfrequently for the purpose of adulterating tea ; and 

 indeed, not many years since, a patent was taken out for 

 preparing them as a substitute for the more costly leaf ; 

 cattle will browse on them, not forgetting to pay due re- 

 gard to the sharp spines with which the younger branches 

 are plentifidly armed. 



With the exception that a strong fermented liquor may 

 be made from haws, neither the blossom nor the fruit has 

 been applied to any important use by man : but the flowers 

 as well as the leaves afford sustenance to a variety of 

 insects ; and the haws, which are followed, as to the time 

 of ripening, by the berries of the Ivy, and those again by 

 the berries of the Mistletoe, produce an abundant supply 



' Some few years ago, a gardener, accustomed only to the midland 

 counties, was engaged by a gentleman, whose estate lies on the 

 northern sea-coast of Devonshire, to superintend his garden and 

 plantations. On his arrival he was sent by his employer to walk 

 through his domain, that he might gain some notion of what would 

 be required of him. His inspection being completed, he was asked 

 what he thought of his new employment : "I like the place well," 

 he replied, " and doubt not that 1 should be able to give satisfaction, 

 except on one point. How my predecessor contrived to keep the 

 Thorn-hedges so neatly clipped with only four hands to help him, I 

 cannot tell, nor can 1 undertake to do as well : I must therefore 

 decline the situation." He was not a little surprised on being told 

 that the north-west wind was his " predecessor," a coadjutor whose 

 services he probably afterwards found verging on the officious. 



