264 



THAT S IT ; 



barberry, however, is cultivated 

 for the sake of these, which are 

 pickled, and used for garnishing 

 dishes ; and being boiled with 

 sugar, form a most agreeable 

 jelly ; they are likewise used as 

 a sweetmeat, and are put into 

 sugar plums, or comfits. The 

 fruit has also medicinal properties, 

 and the roots, boiled in lye, 

 yield a yellow colour. The inner 

 bark of the stems, also, will dye 

 linen of a fine yellow, being 

 admixed with alum. Some of 

 the species bear red, others purple, 

 pale yellow, and stoneless fruit. 



670. 



Insects of various kinds are 

 fond of the fruit of the berberry 

 (spelt also barberry), its particular 

 inhabitant being the cecidium 

 berberidis, a moth, which farmers 

 suppose to generate the dust 

 which, carried from the bush by 

 winds, and lighting on wheat, 

 and other growing corn, gives 

 rise to a minute fungus, which 

 produces what is called mildew. 

 But it is more probable that the 



dust consists of a species of 

 fungus parasitical to the shrub. 

 The berberry is also resorted to 

 by the raspberry carpet moth, the 

 berberry pug, &c* 



16 



The dog-wood shrubs are very 

 ornamental, not only from their 

 flowers and berries, 16, of various 

 colours, but from their variously 

 coloured barks, which have a fine 

 effect in winter, especially among 

 evergreens. The berries are very 

 bitter, but they yield an oil, 

 which in some parts is applied to 

 useful purposes. The wood is 

 very hard, and is employed in the 

 manufacture of toothpicks, skewers, 

 mill-cogs, bobbins for lace, &c. 



Furze or gorse, 17, is the well- 

 known evergreen prickly shrub, 

 which bears rich yellow flowers, 

 during the greater part of the 

 year. The greatest botanists 

 have admired this plant for its 

 deep green shoots and leaves, 

 golden flowers, and perfectly 

 shrub-like form. It is said that 

 when Linnseus first beheld a vast 



* Loudon's Encrclopsedi t of Plant*. 



