nearly all over Europe, and in some parts of Africa 
and Asia. America does not claim it as her own, 
but has imported it; and in that country it is used 
as in England, in fences. For this purpose it 
would, at first sight, be thought superior to the 
hawthorn, hut it is not so. Instead of the parent 
plant raising a young and useful family of shoots 
at home, to strengthen the hedge, as its own powers 
decline, it sends out a progeny of wanderers, that 
encroach on the adjacent land, in all directions. 
Duhamel remarks that, in France, it was observed 
that lands adjoining forests were invaded by the 
sloe thorn, and, if not eradicated, it protected the 
seeds of timber trees, threatening, that, at no great 
distance of time, the whole would be covered with 
forests. 
The wood of the sloe tree is exceedingly hard 
and tough; and a wound from its thorns was 
thought, by Withering, to be more difficult to heal 
than one from the spines of the common hawthorn. 
Its fruit has been used for several purposes — some 
not the most honest, for it is said to enter largely 
into the manufacture of inferior port wines; just 
as the leaves have into “Chinese” tea. A small 
proportion of the fruit has been advantageously 
used in some kinds of British wines, especially 
that from the Elder-berry, to give it a brisker 
flavour and slight astringency. 
The double variety of the Sloe Thorn is most 
ornamental when trained to a single stem, with a 
spreading head; and thus grown, has a character 
of its own, well suited to the embellishment of 
woodland districts. 
