| a@ variety of ways, as an article of food. 
| used to form a liquor which is much esteemed as 
| a stomachic, an agreeable bitter, and for diffusing 
oe) 
ASH. 
ASHES. 
in many old burying-places, or near the circles of | sery-propagation should be made about half an 
Druidical temples, whose vile orgies were per- 
formed in association with the shade and branches 
of the tree as accessories. In Russia the ripe 
fruit of the mountain-ash is used extensively, in 
It is 
a glow over the system during the winter months. 
To make this, take a small cask, two-thirds full 
of the ripe berries, picked and cleaned; fill it 
with strong spirits, and allow it to stand in a 
cold cellar for twelve months. Then run off the 
spirit, which has become completely impregnated 
with the colour and flavour of the fruit, and 
_ comes away perfectly pure, the macerated ber- 
_ ies remaining at the bottom. The spirit or 
_ tincture is then bottled. The boors or lower 
_ class make use of the watky, or common fermented 
spirits of the country, for the above purpose, while 
the nobility, the higher orders of the people, and 
foreigners, employ gin, brandy, rum, or other 
spirits. A glass or two of this liquor is taken 
each forenoon during the winter-months, and it 
generally makes its appearance at lunch. An- 
other application of the fruit of the rowan-tree 
| as an article of food, is in the form of jelly, jam, 
or preserve. ‘To make the jelly, put the berries, 
when ripe and cleanly picked, into a large jar, 
which is to be placed either in an oven, or ina 
| saucepan of boiling water, until they part with 
their juice. Strain through a fine sieve, but do 
| not press the berries; weigh the juice, and add 
to it an equal weight of loaf sugar; boil them 
together until they acquire a proper consistence. 
Rowan jelly thus made has a pleasant, slightly 
bitter taste, and in appearance resembles that 
made from red currants. It is eaten in consider- 
able quantity with partridges, the different va- 
rieties of wild fowl, &c., which are to be had in 
any quantity at a trifling price, and constitute a 
daily dish. The jam is made in the same man- 
ner as that of the gooseberry, or any other spe- 
cies of fruit, and forms a good remedy in stomach 
complaints and sore throats. Lastly, the berries, 
towards the end of the season, when ripe, are 
collected in great quantities by the boors, for 
their own consumption, and for that of the nobles 
on whose estate they live; and are salted, along 
with various sorts of wild berries, and preserved 
amongst their winter store in the ice - cellars. 
| During the winter the berries thus kept form a 
part of their daily meals, and are reckoned an- 
tiscorbutic. 
_ The mountain-ash, though preferring a dry 
soil of medium quality, will grow upon almost 
any soil, whether dry or moist, strong or light, 
deep or shallow, fine or coarse, moderately vege- 
_ table or almost wholly mineral; and though un- 
able to bear much wet without considerable de- 
triment, it perfectly braves the bleakest situation, 
_-the coldest exposure, and the fiercest and most 
| frequent blast.—Sowings of its berries for nur- 
inch deep ; and the young plants will appear in the 
following spring, and ought, a twelvemonth after- 
wards, to be planted out in the nursery. The 
seed-bed ought to be kept clear of weeds; the 
young plants ought, in dry weather, to be occa- 
sionally refreshed with artificial waterings; and, 
after they are planted out in the nursery, all 
forked shoots ought occasionally to be removed, 
and the spaces between the rows occasionally 
cleaned and stirred with the hoe, till the plants 
are of sufficient size to be removed to their final 
situation. Propagation of the mountain-ash may 
likewise be effected by cutting down a tree close 
to the ground, layering the shoots from the stool 
next year in the same manner as carnations, and 
removing the rooted layers, a twelvemonth after, 
to the spots where they are destined permanently 
to grow. But trees raised from layers are neither 
so straight, so large, nor so handsome as trees | 
raised from seed. — Gilpin’s Forest Scenery. — 
Nicol’s Planter’s Kalendar.—Sir John Sinclair’s | 
Code of Agriculture—General Report of Scotland. 
—Marshall on Planting, V.Sorsus.—Miller’s Ggr- 
dener’s Dictionary, V. Sorsus.—Dr. Howison in 
Ldinburgh Journal of Natural History. 
ASHES. The earthy and saline remains of 
the combustion of vegetables, animal substances, 
or mixtures of minerals with vegetable or animal 
matters. Most ashes which meet observation, or 
can be employed for useful purposes, are obtained 
from fresh or recent plants, or from such dead 
vegetable matter as still retains its fibrous or 
cellular character; but many are obtained also 
from hardened, altered, and ancient vegetable 
matter, in the form of coal,—many, from mix- 
tures of vegetable and mineral matter in the 
form of sward,—some from mixtures of princi- 
pally a mineral character in the form of clayey 
or loamy soil,—some from substances almost 
wholly animal,—some from mixtures of vege- 
table, animal, and mineral matters, in the form 
of the refuse of yards,—and some from other het- 
erogeneous compounds, of very diversified form 
and character. When either sound or decayed 
plants are burnt in the open air, and most of 
their substance is evaporated or dispersed by 
thorough combustion, an impalpable and incom- 
bustible powder remains, of a flaky appearance, 
of a whitish colour, soft to the touch, and desti- 
tute of both taste and smell. This powder is the 
only true vegetable ash, the most valuable part 
of all the substances which are usually designated 
vegetable ashes, and even the type of all the 
varieties of the residue of combustion; yet it 
very rarely exists in a pure condition, it possesses 
a wide diversity of chemical character corre- 
sponding to the different kinds of plants from 
which it is obtained, and it is almost always 
modified in both character and action by un- 
burnt portions of the plant, or by the mineral 
and animal ingredients with which it is mixed. 
Ashes, therefore, in the practical sense of the 
- 
