9 () 
ADIANTACE.^:, 
and other places, we observed that the people thatched their 
houses with the stalks of this fern, and fastened them down with 
ropes made either of birch-bark or heath ; sometimes they used 
the whole plant for the same purpose, but that does not make so 
durable a covering.” The same author goes on to say that 
swine are fond of the roots if boiled in their wash ; and Mr. 
Edwin Lees has recorded in ‘ The Phytologist ’ f that in the 
forest of Dean he saw some girls carrying a quantity of recently 
cut Pteris aquilina or Earn, which they retailed at twopence 
per bushel. On enquiring the use for which it was intended, he 
W’as informed that it was extensively employed in the forest for 
feeding pigs, which are very fond of it : for this purpose, however, 
it must be cut while the fronds are still uncurled, and must be 
boiled. The slushy or mucilaginous mass thus produced is con- 
signed to the wash-tub or other receptacle, and in this state it 
will keep as pig-food for a considerable length of time. Mr. 
Lees w^as informed that it was found very serviceable, especially 
to cottagers, as coming in at an early period of the summer, 
when the produce of the garden is generally scanty. Mr. Lees 
suggests that it might not be an unpalateable accompaniment 
to a rasher of bacon, but its use as an article of human sus- 
tenance is not quite so questionable as it would be if de- 
pendant on this ingenious speculation : we learn from Lightfoot 
that it has not unfrequently occurred that the poorer inhabitants 
of some parts of Normandy have been reduced to the miserable 
necessity of mixing the large and succulent rhizomas of this 
fern with their bread ; and in Siberia, and some other northern 
countries, the inhabitants brew them in their ale, using one-third 
of these rhizomas to two -thirds of malt. The ancients also are 
said to have used both the rhizomas and fronds of this fern in 
decoctions and diet drinks, in chronic disorders of all kinds, 
arising from obstructions of the viscera and spleen. Some of 
* Lightfoot, Flor. Scot ii. 659. It would appear that formerly it was com- 
monly used in England, for the same purpose, for by a statute for regulating the 
price of labour in England, dated 1349, being the 23rd of Edward III., we find 
it enacted, that every tyler or coverer with straw or fern shall receive 3d. per 
day, and their servants or knaves 2d. per day, and their boys lid. per day. 
f Phytologist, 263. 
