180 ENGLISH BOTANY. 
which infests the timber. Large quantities of alder timber are consumed in making 
herring-barrels, and some by the turner and carpenter, but it is inferior for their 
purposes to many of our native woods. The bark on the young wood is powerfully 
astringent, and is employed by tanners, and the young shoots are used both for 
tanning and dyeing red, brown, and yellow, and, in combination with copperas, to 
dye black. The catkins dye green, and the female catkins are used by fishermen to 
sustain their nets above water instead of cork. In “ Hall’s Travels in Scotland,” the 
author says that the country people in the Highlands make their own shoes, and, to 
avoid the tax on leather, privately tan the hides with the bark of birch and alder. The 
fresh wood dyes a snuff colour, and the bark, dried and powdered and mixed with 
logwood, bismuth, &e., yields the colour called bone de Paris. It is said that the 
Laplanders masticate the bark, and with the saliva so coloured stain their leather 
garments red. In France the small roots are split and worked into baskets, and the 
knotty parts of the larger roots are used for inlaying cabinet-work. The leaves are 
used in medicine as detersive, and a decoction of them as a gargle for diseases of the 
throat. Pennant mentions that at one time the boughs were spread over the fields in 
the summer, leaving them there during the winter to rot, and in the following March 
the undecayed parts were cleared off, and the ground ploughed for a crop of corn. 
He also writes of strewing “the leaves and young shoots on the floors of houses to 
attract fleas, which are said to be entangled in the tenacious liquor as birds are by 
birdlime.” 
Mr. Loudon tells us that the chief use of the alder is as coppice-wood, to be cut 
down every five or six years, and made into charcoal for the gunpowder manufacturers. 
As an ornamental tree much cannot be said in favour of the alder. Du Hamel observes 
that no cattle will ever touch the leaves of the alder as long as they can get anything 
else to cat. It is a good tree for parks, and also for hedges ; and he adds that it 
will form very good avenues in situations exposed to cattle. Gilpin says, “ He who 
would sce the alder in perfection must follow the banks of the Mole in Surrey through 
the sweet vales of Dorking and Mickleham into the groves of Esher. The Mole, indeed, 
is far from being a beautiful river; it is.a quiet and sluggish stream ; but what beauty 
it has it owes greatly to the alder, which everywhere fringes its meadows, and in many 
places forms very pleasing scenes, especially in the vale between Box Hill and the high 
grounds of Norbury Park.” Sir T. D. Lauder says, “ The alder is always associated in 
our minds with river scenery, both of that tranquil description most frequently to be 
met with in the vales of England, and with that of a wilder and more stirring cast, 
which is to be found among the glens and deep ravines of Scotland.” 
Homer, Virgil, and other poets of antiquity mention the alder. In the “ Odyssey” 
we read :— 
“Th living rills a gushing fountain broke ; 
Around it and above for evergreen 
The bushy alders form’d a shady scene.” 
And again :-— 
“ Where the silver alders, in high arches twined, 
Drink the cool stream, and tremble in the wind.” 
The frequent mention of the alder as forming the earliest boats for man suggests 
the idea that possibly a hollow alder falling into the stream on the banks of which it 
grew may have given rise to the first idea of a boat. 
Our own poet Spenser mentions the alders on the banks of the Mulla in his “ Colin 
Clout’s Come Home Again :”— 
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