
THE COMMON BRAKES. 241 
thrown over a mass of the plant, it was scarcely or not at all 
perceptible, although they had become six or eight inches in height. 
The vegetable in this condition was considered preferable to garden 
spinach, and also to have a more beneficial effect on the digestive 
organs.” E 
The stems and caudices of this common plant contain so large a 
quantity of tannin and astringent matter, that they are used in many 
places abroad in dressing and preparing kid and chamois leather. 
The plant also abounds in alkali, which is turned to various uses. 
In the north the fronds are cut green and burnt, and the ashes are 
made up with a little water into balls, which are dried in the sun, 
and used in the washing of linen in lieu of soap. They are indeed 
sometimes mixed with tallow to form a kind of home-made soap. 
In the western isles of Scotland a considerable profit was formerly 
made by the sale of fern ashes to the soap and glass makers; and 
in the mountainous parts of Wales it is related by Mr. Bladon * 
that the plant is collected, and dried, and afterwards burned in 
large heaps, for the sake of the alkali contained in the ashes; these 
being sprinkled with water to cause them to adhere together, are 
rolled into balls two inches or upwards in diameter. The balls when 
thoroughly dried are sold in the markets, or even in the shops, the 
price varying from 3d. to 8d. per dozen. They are much prized by 
some housewives on account of their utility in economising soap. 
When about to be used, they are put into the fire, and being heated 
to red heat are thrown into a tub of water; the water in the course 
of an hour or so becomes a strong ley fit for use. 
The Bracken is not an ornamental Fern for garden purposes; 
indeed, in pots or in small rockeries, it is rather weedy than orna- 
mental, but there are nevertheless situations in which it may be 
cultivated with advantage. Thus, for example, it may be grown for 
ornament about the margins of that class of plantations which skirt 
the approach roads to mansions, or screen unsightly objects; and it 
may also be used with advantage for the purpose of affording shelter, 
or cover in the more open plantations of parks and paddocks. . There 
has been an impression that the Bracken is difficult to transplant 
* Bladon, in Annals and Magazine of Natural History, n. ser. iv. 242. 
VOL. II. R 

