146 NETHER LOCHABER. 



larger size, has more pretentions to tte name of tree, in fact, than 

 here with you ; and our nuts, I should say, must be larger, juicier, 

 and in all respects better than yours." (A " soft impeachment," at 

 which, for the honour of Nether Lochaber, we took the liberty of 

 gravely shaking our head in token of dissent). "We seldom, 

 however," he went on, " can get a ripe hazel nut in autumn, the 

 reason being that in many places they are gathered while yet in a 

 half-formed and green state. You look surprised, but the reason 

 is this : the husk of the green, unripe hazel nut is rich, as you must 

 be aware, in a bitterly sharp and astringent acid, that must have 

 often made your teeth water when you have essayed to crack a 

 nut in a state of immaturity. This acid, then, you must know, is 

 valuable as a mordant (a technical term) in the printing and dyeing 

 of cotton and other fabrics, and it commands a high price in the 

 market accordingly. It is a maxim in commerce that demand 

 creates supply ; and the consequence is, that every year in the 

 month of July, when the nuts are at their greenest, and the acid in 

 their husks at its acridest, women and children plunder the woods 

 of their hazel nut clusters, which are sold to the manufacturers, who, 

 by a process of crushing by machinery, and washing and maceration, 

 extract all the acid, to be employed, as I have already mentioned, 

 in cotton printing and dye works." So far in substance, if not in 

 ipsissimis verbis, our friend. All we could reply was that we 

 should be sorry indeed to see our own bonny hazel woods similarly 

 despoiled. Another thing told us by this friend somewhat surprised 

 us. He observed our servant girl carrying a bundle of potato "shaws" 

 into the byre, and asked us what they were for. On our replying 

 that these were the shaws of the potatoes taken up for dinner, and 

 that they were thrown before the cows, and devoured by them with 

 avidity on their return from their hill pasture in the evening, he 

 earnestly advised us never to do so again; that in England it was never 

 done, because it was found that potato shaws given to milch cows 



