—— —- = —— 
490 BORKHAUSIA. 
years, so as to have its trunk pierced with a 
number of holes, does not suffer material injury, 
but continues to be healthy and robust. Hach 
hole, too, provided it be not unnecessarily large, 
gradually fills up, by the formation and projec- 
tion of new alburnum and liber round the edges 
and sides of the orifice, until it becomes com- 
pletely closed. 
Boring was likewise an operation in former 
times, though a very absurd, useless, and bar- 
barous one, for the cure of wrenching in the 
shoulders of horses. The operation was per- 
formed as follows. “ They cut a hole in the skin, 
in the middle of the shoulder, and, with the 
shank of a tobacco pipe, blow it as a butcher 
does a shoulder of veal; then they run a cold 
flat iron, like a horseman’s sword-blade, eight or 
ten inches up between the shoulder-blade and 
the ribs, which they call boring; after that, they 
burn him round the shoulder with a hot iron.” 
BORKHAUSIA. A genusof hardy herbaceous 
plants, of the succory division of the composite 
tribe. Twenty-one species have been introduced 
| to Great Britain,—two from the north of Africa, 
one from North America, and the rest from the 
south of Europe; and two of the twenty-one are 
| perennials, four are biennials, and the rest are 
annuals. One of the most interesting—though 
even this figures only as a second-rate ornamental 
| plant—is the alpine species, Borkhausia alpina, 
_ formerly Crepis alpina, a hardy annual from the 
_ Italian alps. Its stems are strong, upright, about 
18 inches high, and ramified into three or four 
erect branches; its radical leaves are numerous, 
oblong, pointed, five inches long, nearly two 
inches broad at the base, and growing near the 
root; its stem-leaves are sessile, hairy, rough, 
and of the same shape as the radical leaves; and 
its flowers have a pale yellowish white colour, are 
produced at the top of the stems, and usually ap- 
pear in July. This plant matures its seeds in 
autumn, and, if not destroyed, will abundantly 
sow and propagate itself. 
BORON. See Boratzs. 
BOSCAGE, or Bosqurt. A small wood, a mi- 
mic grove, or an umbrageous section of a large 
garden. The word is the diminutive of the 
Italian name for a grove or wood; and was tech- 
nically applied, in the early part of last century, 
| to a shrubby or dendritic compartment of a large 
garden, fancifully arranged in its trees or shrubs, 
and enclosed with an evergreen hedge. 
BOSEA. An ornamental, evergreen, half-ten- 
der shrub, of the goosefoot tribe. Only one spe- 
cies, called Yervamora, and popularly golden-rod 
tree, is known in Great Britain; and this was 
introduced from the Canary Islands early in last 
century, and has since been found wild in some 
of the islands of North America. Its stem is 
strong, woody, about two feet in girth and eight 
feet in height; its branches come out irregularly, 
and make considerable shoots in summer; and its 
| outline is handsome and imposing; yet its char- 
BOSTRICHID:. 
acter, as an ornamental shrub, is greatly impaired 
by the necessity of housing or otherwise strongly 
protecting it in winter, and by the excessive 
difficulty, if not impossibility, of bringing it to 
flower. 
BOSS. A slender triangular or conical cage in 
the centre of a rick or stack, to insure a circula- 
tion of air, and prevent heating and fermentation. 
A pole is adjusted to the centre of the rick-stand ; 
three or more straight sticks are fixed slantingly 
against the pole, so as to form an open triangle 
or cone, with the base upon the rick-stand; and 
railings are nailed transversely upon the sticks, 
or a strong straw rope is fastened round them, 
to prevent the sheaves from falling in. The 
summit of the boss does not reach the top of the 
rick ; but when the builder arrives at the sum- 
mit, he attaches to it a sack filled with straw, 
and, having built round part or most of it, pulls 
it up from time to time till he completes the 
rick; and thus a free ventilation from base to 
top of the rick is secured. The boss is a Scottish 
invention, and is eminently useful in the ricking 
of beans and of the cereal crops in an unsettled 
and critical harvest. See the articles Brans, 
Srack, and Harvest. 
BOSTRICHIDAS, or XytopHacr. A group of 
coleopterous insects, nearly allied to the weevils, 
and nearly as noted for their ravages in the forest 
as the latter are for their devastations on the 
farm. They are strongly characterized, by an 
exclusively lignivorous habit; and are popularly 
designated by names, such as wood-beetles, wood- 
eaters, and timber-borers, which show that this 
habit has long been observed and is generally 
known. Their head—at least in some of the 
most conspicuous species—is slightly elongated ; 
their antenne have a clavated extremity ; their 
body is narrow and lengthened; and their tarsi 
are four-jointed ; and thus they possess a consi- 
derable similarity of conformation to the weevil | 
group. Though small in size, and individually 
feeble in effort and microscopic in achievement, 
they congregate in such myriads, and operate 
with such steadiness, and exert such power of 
combination, as to be the most formidable assail- 
ants of the strength and even life of our sturdiest 
and most stalwart forest-trees. Some feed within 
the wood, and others merely beneath the bark ; 
and the latter are probably the most formidable. 
“Their general plan of proceeding, is to scoop 
out cylindrical galleries in the soft inner bark, 
which, as well as the woody substance of the 
tree, constitutes their food. These bores ramify 
in all directions, without however intersecting 
each other, or anastomosing, except in rare in- 
stances; and the death of the tree is occasioned 
by being barked, a complete separation being 
made between the wood and the superficial cir- 
culating system by which its growth is main- 
tained. The bores or tubular paths sometimes 
form irregular figures, not unlike some kinds of 
written characters, or the rivers as delineated on 
Sita RNS aa ee BO ea Se reer 
Se aa nn 
