THE PLUM 117 



Desolate indeed is the wintry look of its tangle of 

 black, thorny boughs and twigs, forming some roadside 

 hedgerow, or in clumps on some bleak hill-side ; and 

 desolate does it remain till April, about the middle of 

 which month the blossoms generally appear. From 

 a distance one may then mistrust one's eyesight and 

 wonder if it is indeed a line of lingering snow-drift, 

 brought by the north-east gale of last night, that lies 

 on the slopes of the downs ; but on a nearer approach 

 the black boughs can be just discerned, each ending 

 in a rigid spine and clothed in a foamy mass of starry 

 milk-white petals. 



When, a few weeks later, its flowers are gone 

 and its leaves appear, the tangled Blackthorn with 

 its strong spines forms a thorough protection to the 

 nests of our feathered friends; and, though perhaps 

 from the resistance which its hard wood offers to the 

 shears, and from its tendency to become straggly, it is 

 not scr well adapted for garden hedges as the Horn- 

 beam or Hawthorn, it is both useful and picturesque 

 on the margins of our fields and in our roadside 

 fences. In some parts of France it is known as 

 " Mere du bois," its numerous suckers spreading 

 rapidly beyond the margins of woodland, while its 

 dense thorniness protects the seedlings of other trees 

 which spring up through it. In autumn — 



" the ripening Sloes, yet blue, 

 Take the bright varnish of the morning dew," 



-in silent protest against the partial observation that 

 can only allude to Sloes as black. The Sloe has at 

 first the purple-blue bloom of the common garden 

 Plum ; but as the fruit ripens, though in the Sloe it 



