1 6 My Garden S^lmmer-Seat. 



indeed, is wonderful, but so are the wise adaptations of 

 nature to men's wants ; and mysterious and inscrutable 

 are the potent agents of man's relief still stored up in 

 plant and tree. Bruised plantain leaves, in old days, 

 were esteemed among the rustics an excellent remedy 

 for cuts and bruises, and also for the bites of stinging 

 insects, and in Scotland an ointment is made from them 

 that is sometimes very efficacious. Its mucilaginous 

 properties are remarkable. And what if the uses dis- 

 covered in it are but prophecies of some still more 

 efficient element in specific disease ? Perhaps, then, 

 way-bread is not a corruption after all, and originates 

 in some early conception of edible properties in the 

 plant due to the mucilaginous element in it. 



I even allow a nettle or two in my preserve, and 

 have put in a plea for some of the common field nettles 

 to be allowed to struggle through my hedge. This I 

 do, because of my sense of their beauty of leaf and 

 flower, and because certain of the butterflies are fond 

 of hovering over them. But though I have heard 

 much of the excellence of nettles for edible purposes in 

 various forms, I do not affect a utilitarian interest here. 

 In the parish of Dreepdaily, I know they " forced 

 nettles for early springkail." Nettle-tea, I am told, is 

 much liked by some people, and nettles dressed like 

 spinach make tasty greens ; but love of these was one 

 of the likings I did not carry away from my native 

 country, and if I have ever enjoyed them they were 

 "disguised." Nevertheless, I believe, they may be of 

 great value in this way, for dried in hay, the cattle are 

 fond of them. One of my countrymen, Campbell by 

 name, complained bitterly of the neglect of these escu- 

 lents in England, just as the late worthy Dr. Eisdale 

 complained of the neglect of mushrooms in Scotland 



