THE COMMON OR CHERRY LAUREL 55 
Philip Miller, in that storehouse of the botanical 
and horticultural knowledge ef his time, the “Gar- 
dener’s Dictionary” (Sixth Edition, 1752), speaks of 
the Laurel as being susceptible to frost if “pruned up 
in order to form them into stems,” and recommends 
as preferable the massing or clumping of many plants 
together, as then first carried out by the Duke of 
Bedford at Woburn Abbey. He also mentions that 
near Paris, where it is not as hardy as with us, it was 
grafted on the Cherry or Plum—a practice which has, 
he says, but little, if anything, to recommend it; and 
he also states that “the Berries have long been used 
to put into Brandy, to make a sort of Ratafia, and the 
leaves have also been put into Custards.” 
The infusion of the leaves, known as laurel-water, 
seems first to have been recognised as “ one of the most 
speedy and deadly poisons in Nature,” about the year 
1731, by the Abbé Fontana, whose experiments are 
described in the 70th volume of the Royal Society’s 
“ Philosophical Transactions”; but it was the murder 
of Sir Theodosius Boughton by his brother-in-law, 
Captain Donaldson, by means of it, in 1780, that first 
directed general attention to it; and it was not until 
1802 that Schrader identified the results of the dis- 
tillation of the leaves as oil of bitter almonds and 
prussic acid. Though a few crumpled leaves may 
produce sneezing, and will rapidly prove fatal from 
their fumes to moths and butterflies, they may, like 
Peach-kernels, be used with impunity in small quan- 
tities for flavouring. 
The Laurel certainly flourishes best in sheltered 
situations, and in a deep and rather light soil. It is 
