morable siege, which they did by the beech masts and acorns that their island afforded.

An oil, equal in flavour to the best olive oil, with the advantage of keeping longer without becoming rancid, may be obtained from the nuts by pressure. It is very common in Picardy and other parts of France where the masts abound: in Silesia, it is used by the country people instead of butter. The cakes which remain from the pressure are given to fatten swine, oxen, or poultry. A bushel of masts are said to produce a gallon of clean oil, but the beech-tree seldom produces a full crop of masts oftener than once in three years.

A few years ago, an attempt was made to introduce the making of beech-oil in this country, and a patent was granted to the projector; but the difficulty of bringing the country people into any new measure, however beneficial to them, is so great, that it often destroys the best concerted projects. In this instance it was found, that they would rather let the swine consume the masts, than suffer their children to collect them for sale to the patentee, and thus failed the making of salad oil in England.

In the reign of George the First, I find

ra petition was made for letters patent for making butter from beech-nuts.

The finest beech-trees in England are The forest of St. Leonard, near Horsham, in Sussex, abounds with noble beech-trees. The cottagers of this forest inform you, that when St. Leonard wished to rest beneath these trees, he was disturbed during the day by the biting of vipers, and that his repose was broken in the night by the, warbling of nightingales, and on that account they ...were removed by his prayers, since which time tradition says of this forest,

› said to grow in Hampshire.

The viper has ne'er been known to sting,
Or the nightingale e'er heard to sing.

The shade of the beech-tree is very injurious to most sorts of plants that grow near it, but is generally believed to be very salubrious to human bodies. The leaves of the beech are collected in the autumn, to fill matresses instead of flock or straw, as they remain sweet, and continue soft, for many years. To chew beech-leaves is accounted good for the gums and teeth. The Romans used beech-leaves and honey to restore the growth of hair, which had fallen off in sickness.

The timber of these trees, in point of actual use, follows next to the oak and the ash, and is little inferior to the elm for water pipes. Between the years 1790 and 1800, when John Aldredge, Esq. of New Lodge, St. Leonard's Forest, was causing fish-ponds to be dug in that neighbourhood, the workmen found scantlings of beech timber, and trunks of these trees, squared out, which were supposed to have been buried in the earth since the time of the Romans, as there is no record mentioning that part of the forest having been either cleared, or ponds made since. Beech-timber is subject to worms when exposed to the air without paint. It is used by wheelwrights and chairmakers, and also by turners for making domestic wooden ware, such as bowls, shovels, &c. Bedsteads and other furniture are often made with this timber; and no wood splits so fine, or holds so well together, as beech, so that boxes, sword-sheaths, and a variety of other things, are made from it. When the art of splitting this wood was first known in England, the parties who used it kept the method a profound secret for many years.

BLACKBERRY.—RUBUS;

Or, BRAMBLE BERRY.

A Species of Raspberry.-In Botany, a Genus of the Icosandria Polygynia Class.

THE bramble derives it's Latin name, rubus, from the redness of the twigs and juice of the fruit. "that the pro

Pliny informs us,

pagation of trees by layers, was taught the

ancients by the bramble-bush."

Some bow their vines, which, buried in the plain,
Their tops, in distant arches, rise again.

Dryden's Virgil.

"The berries," says Pliny," are the food of man, and have a desiccative and astringent virtue, and serve as a most appropriate remedy for the gums and inflammation of the tonsils." The flowers also, as well as the berries of the bramble, were considered by the ancients as remedies against the worst of

serpents. They are diuretic, and the juice pressed out of the tendrils, or young shoots, of brambles stamped, and afterwards reduced into the consistency of honey by standing in the sun, is, says the above author, "a singular medicine taken inwardly, or applied outwardly, for all the diseases of the mouth and eyes, as well as for the quinsy," &c. The young shoots, eaten as a salad, will fasten teeth that are loose. The roots of the bramble, boiled in wine, were esteemed one of the best astringents by the Roman physicians, who preferred the juice of blackberries to that of mulberries for the infirmities of the mouth. Brookes says, "the fruit, when ripe, is cooling, and quenches thirst; and the leaves pounded, and applied to ring-worms, and ulcers of the legs, will heal them in a short time." Boerhaave affirms, that the roots taken out of the earth in February or March, and boiled with honey, are an excellent remedy against the dropsy.

The jam made from blackberries is now much used in sore throats caused by colds, and is given in slight fevers.

The juice of blackberry mixed with raisin wine, before it has fermented, will give it both the colour and flavour of claret.