272 ARBORETUM ET FRUTICETUM BRITANNICUM. 
457. Primus spindsa. 
planted in grass fields or in parks, to protect them from cattle. They are in 
general use for this purpose in France. They are also used as a substitute for 
stones and tiles in draining; and, formed into faggots, they are sold for heating 
bakers’ ovens, and for burning lime or chalk in kilns, &c. The living plant 
cannot be recommended for hedges, on account of the rambling habit of its 
roots, and the numerous suckers they throw up; and because it is apt to get 
naked below, from the tendency of the shoots to grow upright and without 
branches. These upright shoots make excellent walking-sticks, which, ac- 
cordingly, throughout Europe, are more frequently taken from this tree than 
from any other. Leaves of the sloe, dried, are considered to form the best 
substitute for Chinese tea which has yet been tried in Europe; and they have 
been extensively used for the adulteration of that article. The juice of the 
ripe fruit is said to enter largely into the manufacture of the cheaper kinds of 
port wine ; and, when properly fermented, it makes a wine strongly resembling 
new port. In planting groups and masses in parks, by the addition of a few 
plants of the sloe, a degree of intricacy may be given sooner and more ef- 
tectively, than by the use of the common thorn; but, at the same time, the sloe 
produces a degree of wildness from its numerous suckers, and the want of 
control which they indicate, which is not displayed by any of the species of 
Cratze‘gus, which do not throw up suckers. For producing wildness and in- 
tricacy, therefore, in park scenery, the sloe is of great value, and its effect is 
much heightened by the addition of the common furze or the broom, The 
sloe prefers a strong calcareous loam. It may be propagated freely by suckers, 
or by seeds : the latter should be gathered in October, when the fruit is dead 
ripe, mixed with sand, and turned over two or three times in the course of the 
winter ; and, being sown in February, they will come up in the month of May. 
¥ 2. P.insiti’t1a L. The engrafted Plum Tree, or Bullace Pluwn. 
Identification. Lin. Sp., 680.; Dec. Prod., 2. p.532.; Don’s Mill., 2. p. 498. 
Synonymes. P. sylvéstris pree‘cox Altior Tourn.; P. sylvéstris major Ray ; Prunier sauvage, Fr. ; 
Alfatous, iz Dauphiny ; Kirschen Pflaume, Ger. 
Engravings. Eng. Bot., t.841.; Hayne Abbild., t.65.; the plate in Arb. Brit., Ist edit., vol. v.; 
and our jig. 438. 
Spec. Char., §c. Branches becoming spiny. Flowers in pairs. Leaves ovate 
or lanceolate ; villose beneath, not flat. Fruit roundish. (Dec. Prod.) A 
low tree. England, Germany, and the South of France, and also Barbary. 
Height 10 ft. to 20 ft. Flowers white; March and April. Drupe black ; 
ripe in October. 
Varieties. 
¥ P. i. 1 fréictu nigro Hort. The biack-fruited, or common, Bullace. 
¥ P. i. 2 frictu liteo-dlbo Hort.—Fruit yellowish-white. 
