34 COMMON BRAKES. 



for which it was intended, he was informed that it was exten- 

 sively employed in the forest for feeding pigs, which are very 

 fond of it : for this purpose, however, it must be cut while the 

 fronds are still uncurled, and must be boiled. The slushy or 

 mucilaginous mass thus produced is consigned to the wash-tub 

 or other receptacle^ -and in this state it will keep as pig-food for 

 a considerable length of time. Mr. Lees was informed that it 

 was found very serviceable, especially to cottagers, as coming 

 in at an early period of the summer, when the produce of the 

 garden is generally scanty. Mr. Lees suggests that it might 

 not be an unpalateable accompaniment to a rasher of bacon ; 

 but its use as an article of human sustenance is not quite so 

 questionable as it would be if dependant on this ingenious 

 speculation. We learn from Lightfoot, that it has not unfre- 

 quently occurred that the poorer inhabitants of some parts of 

 Normandy have been reduced to the miserable necessity of 

 mixing the large and succulent rhizomes of this fern with their 

 bread ; and in Siberia, and some other northern countries, the 

 inhabitants brew them in their ale, using one-thu-d of these 

 rhizomes to two-thirds of malt. 



The ancients also are said to have used both the rhizomes 

 and fronds of this fern in decoctions and diet-drinks, in chronic 

 disorders of all kinds, arising from obstructions of the viscera 

 and spleen. Some of the more modern writers have given it a 

 high character for the same purposes, but it is now falling into 

 disuse among medical practitioners : the country people, how- 

 ever, in Haller's time, still continued to employ it for its ancient 

 uses, and gave it as a j)owder to destroy worms ; they also 

 regarded a bed of the green fronds as a sovereign cure for the 

 rickets in children : probably these uses are still in vogue. Its 

 astringency is so great, that it is used in many places abroad in 

 dressing and preparing kid and chamois leather. In the ' Phy- 

 tologist' (iv. 1065), Dr. Lindsay adds that the common brakes 

 " is very astringent, containing a considerable amount of tannic 

 and gallic acids ; hence it has been greatly used as an anthel- 

 mintic." The rhizome, however, is said to be poisonous to 

 cattle, and to produce the trembles in sheep ; see Walker's 

 Mam. Scot. pp. 513 and 525. 



