Botany of the Borders. 409 
fuel: the few coal mines were not then worked, peat was 
very local, wood very scarce, so that turf dug from the moor 
and a little brushwood was their only resource; for this 
purpose, the right to certain cuttings of furze, or whin, is 
specified in leases so late as 1730. 
We have already stated that our author has discarded 
Scientific descriptions with the exception of the Rubi, or 
brambles, and the Hieracia, or hawkweeds ; these being exe- 
cuted with care, and illustrated by expressive figures, will be 
found highly useful by the student; as an illustration of our 
author’s manner of describing the local notabilia of a plant, 
let us take a few examples :— 
*« Sedum acre; stone-crop, on dikes capt with earth, and 
on rocks in deans, common. June. Often removed to the 
garden to ornament walls and rock-work; and cottagers 
plant it on their window-sills, and on the roof of the porch, 
where it grows untended, pleasant, and evergreen in the - 
leaf, or cheerful when in flower. In winter the herbage is 
purplish-brown ; on chewing a bit of it, no particular taste is 
at first perceptible, but, in a few minutes an acrid and 
peculiarly disagreeable sensation in the throat follows, and 
which lasts a considerable time. ‘This acridity is much 
weakened, and often entirely lost, when the stone-crop is in 
flower. 
“Prunus spinosa. The slce, or slae, on the precipitous 
banks of deans, or braes, where the shrub forms an impene- 
trable brake wherein our little songsters can nestle in security. 
April—and our ancestors watched the time, for, said they— 
‘ When the slae tree is as white as a sheet 
Sow your barley, whether it be dry or wét.’ 
The austere fruit is eaten by schoolboys after it has been 
ameliorated by the frosts of winter. One of the occupations 
of the ‘shortest days’ after the ‘barring out’? had gained a 
holiday, used to be a foray to the slae-berry braes. I have 
more than once been one of the party. Slae sticks are 
prized, because they are very knobby, straight and dark 
coloured, and firmer than those of other shrubs.” 
With afew extracts from the remarks on the fox-glove, 
we shall close these illustrations :— 
