THE PRINCIPLES OF BOTANY. 
317 
Still, the nature and cause of its irritant properties is a 
problem of some difficulty. Even in our common species the 
action is sufficiently powerful to lead to the conclusion that, 
if it results from a secretion of the plant, it must be of a 
kind with which we are but imperfectly acquainted. 
The boiled herb is a wholesome vegetable, and in this 
state it may even be used as a poultice without possessing 
any irritating properties, hut rather the reverse. This seems 
to show that something is due to the mechanical structure of 
the nettle. Probably the exceeding sharp points of the 
bristles rankle in the wounds they have made ; but be that 
as it may, every schoolboy can point to a remedy for the 
sting of a nettle— 
“ Nettle in, dock out, 
Dock in, nettle out,” 
is a charm, combined with the rubbing in of the juice of any 
species of Dock, which immediately gives relief. 
Barnes, the Dorset Poet, has the following quaint lines 
upon this subject in the vernacular of the county: 
“ The dock-leaves that do spread so wide 
Up yonder zunny bank’s green zide, 
Do bring to mind what we did do 
At play wi’ dock-leaves years agoo : 
How we,—when nettles had a-stung 
Our little hands when we were young,— 
Did rub ’em wi’ a dock, and zing, 
4 Out nettV , in dock. In dock , out sting? ” 
Nettles have been used for various economic purposes; 
amongst others, that of paper making. In Dr. Syme’s new 
edition of ‘ English Botany’ we find the following note in 
reference to the Nettle :—“ The common name of this plant, 
familiar to everybody, is said by Dr. Prior c to have meant 
primarily that with which one sews; and it is, indeed, 
almost identical with needle. Applied to the plant now 
called so, it indicates that this supplied the thread used in 
former times supplied by the German and Scandinavian 
nations, which we know as a fact to have been the case in 
Scotland in the seventeenth century.’ Westmacott says, 
‘ Scotch cloth is only the housewifery of the nettle.’ In 
Friesland also it has been used until a late period. Flax and 
hemp bear Southern names, and were introduced into the 
north to replace it.” 
An ally of the Nettles will be found in the common 
English plant known as Pellitory of the AYall —Parietaria 
