——. 
178 SHAKE. 
tensively cultivated in the West Indies, and is 
often regarded as a characteristic fruit-tree of 
that region. Its stem commonly rises to the 
height of about 15 feet; its leaves are ovate- 
lanceolate, thick, and shining; its flowers are 
white, and bloom from May till July; and its 
fruit is comparatively large, and possesses cooling 
and aperient properties, and has a taste some- 
what similar to that of a fine orange, and, when 
of prime quality, is one of the most exquisite 
fruits in the world. But after the plant came 
to be generally grown in the West Indies, it 
greatly degenerated in consequence of bad cul- 
ture, and of want of care to propagate fine varie- 
ties by budding. The fruit of good trees has 
red flesh and a luscious flavour; but that of 
most of the West Indian trees has pale yellow 
flesh and a harsh sour taste. The proper man- 
agement of the shaddock-tree is similar to that 
of the orange-tree. 
SHAKE. A disease in trees, consisting of 
long splits up the stem, and caused, in many in- 
stances, by violently bending the trees when 
young. 
SHALE. See Sorn, Maru, Cray, and Coat. 
SHALLOT, Escator, or Escuanior, — botani- 
cally Allium Ascalonicum. A hardy, perennial, 
bulbous-rooted, culinary plant, of the onion genus. 
It was introduced to Britain from Palestine about 
the middle of the 16th century. Its root is com- 
posed of a cluster of oblong bulbs; and is the 
part for which the plant is cultivated; and is 
used raw in salads, and cut small for sauce to 
boiled or fried meat. Jt has a stronger taste 
than the onion, yet is thought not to leave so 
strong an odour on the palate, and is therefore 
sometimes preferred to it. Each offset of the 
root, when properly planted and cultivated, be- 
comes an independent luxuriant plant. The 
planting may be done either in October or No- 
vember, or in February, March, or the beginning 
of April, at distances of 6 inches every way, in 
beds not more than 4 feet wide. In dry soil 
autumn planting is best; but in soil even mo- 
derately moist, spring planting is necessary, as 
the sets are very liable to be destroyed by mois- 
ture in winter. The time for taking up the 
bulbs is July or August. The flower-stem of the 
shallot-plant is about 10 inches high; and the 
flowers have a purple colour, and naturally bloom 
in June and July. 
SHAMROCK. /The national emblem of Ire- 
land. It is commonly supposed to have been 
selected by St. Patrick as an emblematic illustra- 
tion of the doctrine of the Trinity; it is inferred, 
from the taste and scholarship of St. Patrick, to 
be a plant of much elegance and beauty; it is 
known, from notices of it in old Irish writers, to 
possess a sour taste and to have been generally 
eaten by the ancient inhabitants of Ireland; and 
it has, for centuries, been most in request at the 
festival of St. Patrick in. the month of March, 
and may therefore be supposed to have originally 
What particular plant, then, is it ? 
SHEALING. 
been in all its glory at that season of the year. 
The word 
shamrock itself is merely a general Irish name 
for a trefoil, and gives no information: Common 
modern opinion points to the white clover,— 
Trefolium repens ; but is widely at war with the 
conditions which we have stated. Mr. Bicheno, 
ina pithy and learned paper in the Journal of 
the Royal Institution, points, and we think points 
convincingly, to the common wood-sorrel,—Owalis 
acetosella,—a plant which pushes forth its delicate 
leaves and blossoms with the earliest spring, and 
is more beautifully three-leaved than even the 
white clover, and must have formed a most. 
agreeable and healthy salad to the old Irish, 
who lived chiefly upon flesh, and may be pro- 
nounced abundantly worthy of all the honours 
heaped upon it by both St. Patrick and the Irish 
people. The wood-sorrel, indeed, is now a com- 
paratively scarce plant in Ireland, while the 
clover is plentiful; but, in the old times of the 
Irish forests, before arable cultivation became 
general, the wood-sorrel may have been plentiful 
ll 
and the clover scarce. 
SHARE. See Proven. 
SHAW. The haulm of potatoes, beans, and 
similar plants; also, a wood that encompasses a 
close. But the word, in both senses, is provincial. 
SHEALING. A summer hut or temporary 
residence in a pastoral district. It used to be 
common in the Orkneys, the Hebrides, and some 
parts of the Scottish continental Highlands; and 
was often of very rude construction, and almost 
totally destitute of furniture. It was usually 
constructed in connexion with a system of sum- 
mer-feeding of-cattle, which was called “ going 
to shealing,” and which has been superseded by 
sheep-husbandry and agricultural improvement ; 
and, by an easy metonymy, the name shealing 
was extended from the hut to the pasture and 
to the system. “After the crops had been sown, 
and the peats cut,” says Dr. Robertson, in his 
Survey of Inverness, “the inhabitants removed 
annually, in the month of June, to their distant 
pastures, with all their cattle and families; and 
there, in some snug spot, the best sheltered in all 
the range allotted to the cattle, they resided for 
a certain number of weeks, until the pasture 
became scarce. A trusty person was sent before 
them to drive away any wandering cattle that 
might. have trespassed within the bounds that 
were to be preserved. The men returned occa- 
sionally to.the farm or home-stead, to collect the 
fuel, or hoe the potatoes, or weed the crop; and 
when the season for weeding the fiax arrived, 
the women went home for that purpose. 
the bounds are extensive, they have frequently 
more than one of these stations, which are called 
ree or aree, in the language of the country, and 
shealings in English. In such cases, the guardian 
of the grass.was sent forward to another shealing, 
whenever the family arrived at that destined 
for their temporary residence. He was called 
ee 
When . 
