BOTANICAL NOTES, NOTICES, AND QUERIES. 167 
Acer campestre.—In a wood called Fairfield Wood, in the parish of 
Belbroughton, Worcestershire, there are several trees of this species; not 
bushy shrubs, such as they generally are, but trees of considerable thick- 
ness of stem, and loftier than the Elderberry-trees, which also grow there. 
Elm and Maple are uncommon hedge-shrubs in this part of the country. 
Acer Pseudo-platanus.—This tree grows on the Lickey Hills, near Bir- 
mingham, at an elevation little short of 1000 feet. A. J., Clent. 
Hlops.—‘ Strong cloth is made in Sweden from the stalks of this plant, 
which for that purpose are gathered in autumn, soaked in water all the 
winter, and in March, after beg dried im a stove, are dressed like flax.” 
This might to some extent be available in the present scarcity of paper- 
making materials. The stalks of the hops are only used at present for fuel. 
Lolium temulentum is a poison, and a deadly one too, if taken in suffi- 
cient quantity, more especially as hot food, as I have proved i in my own 
experience. Believing Her that Nature never yet caused a plant to 
give you a fact regarding its use and SiG: Some of your readers 
may remember to have seen letters of mine written on the island of Beglim, 
near Wexford; some time ago I was located there, reclaiming the mud- 
lands for the Wexford Harbour Embankment Company. Amongst the 
many valuable plants produced indigenously on that fertile land, the Darnel 
grew more luxuriantly than ever I saw it grow anywhere else. The wheat 
grown there, though of the finest quality in Ireland, I could never suffi- 
ciently rid of the Darnel, and in consequence of it I was invariably cut 
in price by the millers of Wexford and Castlebridge. At last I hit on a 
man who, though he never read a word of the chemistry of Sir Robert 
Kane, Liebig, or Faraday, yet knew the value of the Darnel as well as any 
of them did, bought my wheat, giving me the highest price in the market. 
Fearing that he would grind it among the wheat, I gave him the results 
of my own experience. He smiled at my simplicity, showing me his sepa- 
rators, and a large quantity of the Darnel, small grains of wheat, etc., 
ground into meal for feeding his pigs, of which he had a score, 3 ewt. each, 
snoring away in his yard, as drunk as he ever was himself. His practice 
was to mash and ferment it, as an Englishman his malt for ale-brewing, or 
an Irishman his raw corn for potheen whisky distillation.— Correspondent 
of Gardeners’ Chronicle. 
Seeds grown in Moss: the substance of some experiments of planting 
seeds in moss lately made by Mr. Charles Bonnet, of Geneva, F.R.S. 
Read Feb. 18, 1747—48.—Mr. Bonnet was inclined to try whether plants 
were capable of vegetation when they were only set in moss, instead of 
being planted in the earth. With this design he filled with moss several 
garden-pots, and he compressed the moss more or less, as he judged the 
several plants he imtended to plant in them might respectively require a 
closer or a looser soil. He then sowed in wheat, barley, oats, and peas ; 
and he found, first, that all the grains sowed in that manner came to ma- 
turity later than those of the same sorts which were sowed at the same 
time in the mould. Secondly, that the stems from the several grains sowed 
in the moss were generally taller than those which sprang from the ground. 
Thirdly, there came from the grains sowed in the moss a greater number 
