Thunderstorm--Potato Field in Bloom--The Hazel Tree--Hazel
Nuts--Potato Shaws for Cattle--Ferns for Bedding
Cattle--Marmion--Scott.
With an occasional fine day [August 1871], the past fortnight must,
we fear, be characterised as having been upon the whole wet--very
wet, a stranger would say--and not a little stormy withal. We had
a tremendous thunderstorm early on Sunday morning, with the most
magnificent display of forked lightning that we have ever seen, while
the very earth seemed to quake and tremble under the crash of peal
upon peal of thunder, so near and loud at times as to be absolutely
terrible. It is no wonder that the soundest sleepers were awakened
from their midnight slumbers by the hurly-burly. We ourselves got up
for a time, and sat at our window, watching the lightning that darted
incessantly among the mountain summits with startling vividness,
revealing their serrated peaks at times through the very heart of the
thunder-cloud as distinctly as if it were clearest noonday. Rain, too,
fell the while in torrents, that instantly filled river and mountain
stream to overflowing; and as the storm passed away, and we retired
to rest in the grey, uncertain twilight of the early dawn, we were
lulled into a sleep, that lasted well nigh until noon, by the weird
and wild music of "the noise of many waters." We thought, as we sat
alone in the midst of that magnificent storm, of him (was it John
Foster?) who, on a similar occasion, turned round to his companion
and remarked, in a tone of deep solemnity, "It is a fine night; the
Lord is abroad!" Crops, though generally further from maturity than is
usual at this date, continue to grow rapidly, and everywhere present
a strong and healthy appearance,--"a guarantee," as newspaper editors
say, "of their good faith" and honest intentions in the direction of
a bounteous yield when cometh the season of ingathering. Potatoes
are now in full flower; and a very pretty sight, if you deign to
look at it with an unprejudiced eye, is a potato field in blossom
at this season. If the incomparable esculent were not cultivated
for its utility and value as an article of food, it would still
deserve a place in our gardens for its elegance and beauty simply as
a flower. Nothing but its commonness causes its beauty as a flowering
plant to be so constantly overlooked. We are in the midst of our hay
season, and we are only anxious about good weather for securing it in
tolerable order. Eight consecutive days of dry, breezy weather would
be of incalculable value to us at this moment. Anything will grow,
and grow luxuriantly, on the West Coast: our difficulties only begin
with the season of ripening and after preservation. If there be any
truth in the old Scottish saying, that "a year of nuts will also be
a year of corn," then may the grain-growers of the West Highlands at
least already congratulate themselves, for we have seldom seen the
hazel boughs so laden with nut clusters; and a prettier sight than a
hazel wood so laden, either now or when decked in its autumnal robes,
it would be difficult to conceive. It is, besides, a fragrant, cleanly
wood, through which you can at any time dash fearlessly and at will,
all the better of your contact with the leaves, branches, and nut
clusters, when you have reached the open beyond. There is not a leaf
in the woods so thoroughly clean, so fragrant when you have crushed it
in your hand, so soft and pleasant to the touch in its every stage,
as the leaf fresh plucked from the hazel bough. And apropos of hazel
nuts, a gentlemen from the south of England, at present resident in
our neighbourhood, told us something the other day that we did not
know before. "In our part of England," observed our friend, "the
hazel is common, and grows to a larger size, has more pretentions
to the name of tree, in fact, than here with you; and our nuts, I
should say, must be larger, juicier, and in all respects better than
yours." (A "soft impeachment," at which, for the honour of Nether
Lochaber, we took the liberty of gravely shaking our head in token
of dissent). "We seldom, however," he went on, "can get a ripe hazel
nut in autumn, the reason being that in many places they are gathered
while yet in a half-formed and green state. You look surprised, but
the reason is this: the husk of the green, unripe hazel nut is rich,
as you must be aware, in a bitterly sharp and astringent acid, that
must have often made your teeth water when you have essayed to crack
a nut in a state of immaturity. This acid, then, you must know, is
valuable as a mordant (a technical term) in the printing and dyeing of
cotton and other fabrics, and it commands a high price in the market
accordingly. It is a maxim in commerce that demand creates supply;
and the consequence is, that every year in the month of July, when
the nuts are at their greenest, and the acid in their husks at its
acridest, women and children plunder the woods of their hazel nut
clusters, which are sold to the manufacturers, who, by a process of
crushing by machinery, and washing and maceration, extract all the
acid, to be employed, as I have already mentioned, in cotton printing
and dye works." So far in substance, if not in ipsissimis verbis,
our friend. All we could reply was that we should be sorry indeed
to see our own bonny hazel woods similarly despoiled. Another thing
told us by this friend somewhat surprised us. He observed our servant
girl carrying a bundle of potato "shaws" into the byre, and asked
us what they were for. On our replying that these were the shaws of
the potatoes taken up for dinner, and that they were thrown before
the cows, and devoured by them with avidity on their return from
their hill pasture in the evening, he earnestly advised us never to
do so again; that in England it was never done, because it was found
that potato shaws given to milch cows not only lessened the quantity
of milk yielded, but actually vitiated the milk itself, giving it
a disagreeable taste, and making it decidedly unwholesome. All we
could answer was that we had known potato shaws given to milch cows
all over the Highlands since ever we could remember, and that we had
never known or heard any of the evils stated to result from the use
of them. What says the reader? It is true, no doubt, that the potato
belongs botanically to a family of plants many of whom are highly
poisonous--such as the common deadly nightshade of our lanes and
roadsides, for example--and it is averred that, although the tuber
of the potato is healthy and nutritious when cooked, it is a poison
in its raw state, and that its stem, leaves, flower, and "apple"
are all more or less poisonous; and yet we have known boys, while
the blight was yet unheard of, and when potatoes were more prolific
of apples or plums than they have ever been since, eat the large,
soft, full, ripe apples with relish, and they never suffered the
slightest inconvenience in consequence that ever we heard of. As a
boy we have often ate them ourselves, and very saccharine, juicy,
and pleasant flavoured we recollect they were, not at all unlike the
purple plum of our gardens in taste and flavour, and hardly inferior
to it as a pleasant succulent bonne bouche. Cattle, as we know, will
greedily eat the fresh shaws, as they will a decidedly poisonous plant,
the hemlock (Celticè, Iteotha); and it is a well-known fact that in
severe cases of scurvy on board ships that have to go long voyages a
feast of raw potatoes is an immediate and certain cure; so that after
all it would seem that if the potato is originally a poisonous plant,
cultivation has eradicated all, or almost all, traces of the evil. As
to the deleterious effects of the shaws on the milk of cattle we have
our doubts, our amiable and learned friend above mentioned to the
contrary notwithstanding. And while on such subjects let us record a
piece of information received from an old woman in our neighbourhood
a few days ago. We were cutting some green ferns on the hillside,
when the old lady in question, who happened to pass the way at the
time, stood to have a crack with us about the weather and crops and
things in general, said crack concluding somewhat as follows:--"You
are cutting ferns, sir," said the old lady, "what are you to make of
them if you please, sir?" "They are for bedding," we replied, "bedding
for the cows and pony." "Well, sir," she rejoined, "there is no harm
in bedding the pony with them; they will do him no evil; but take an
old woman's advice, and don't put them under your cows." "Why so," we
asked in astonishment. "What can be cleaner, fresher, fragranter for
bedding, whether for horse or cow, than these nice green ferns? Just
look how beautiful and soft they are." "Still, sir," she persisted,
"you must not place them under your cows, particularly your milch
cows; if you do, their udders will assuredly fester, and they will
go wrong in their milk. I have known it happen often, and no sensible
person in the country ever does such a thing now-a-days. Ferns cut in
autumn when brown and ripe make excellent bedding for milch cows as
for all other cattle, but July cut ferns, green, juicy, and unripe,
should never be used for bedding milch cows. I do not pretend to tell
you why they should produce the evils I have mentioned, but I do know
that if I had fifty cows I had rather have them without bedding at all
than put such green, fresh ferns as those under them." We stood for the
moment aghast at this piece of information, which was perfectly new to
us, and from the positive and decided tone of the old lady, a shrewd
intelligent woman of her class, we felt that there must be something
in it. On inquiry we have since found that the old lady's belief in the
evil of ferns--green, unripe ferns, that is--as bedding for milch cows,
is common among the people of this part of the West Highlands. Whether
the whole affair is a mere superstition, the fern having always been
accounted a sacred plant in the Highlands, or whether there is really
some foundation in fact for the belief that a bedding of green ferns
causes the udders of cows to swell and fester as is alleged, we are
not at this moment prepared to say; perhaps some of our readers may be
able to throw light on the subject. It is just possible that green-cut
ferns, when pressed by the recumbent animal, may exude an acrid juice
that, coming in contact with the tender udder, may be absorbed with
the effects alleged. Meantime we doubt it. One thing we know is this,
that cattle are fond of lying down among growing ferns in their every
stage, and that both roe and red deer frequently make their lair among
growing ferns at this season. Do you remember, by the way, Scott's
magnificent description in Marmion of a fern-couched deer roused from
his midnight lair by the awful tolling of the passing-bell over the
living entombment of poor Constance in the monastery of Lindisfarne?--
"Slow o'er the midnight wave it swung,
Northumbrian rocks in answer rung;
To Warkworth cell the echoes roll'd,
His beads the wakeful hermit told.
The Bamborough peasant raised his head,
But slept ere half a prayer he said;
So far was heard the mighty knell,
The stag sprung up on Cheviot Fell,
Spread his broad nostril to the wind,
Listed before, aside, behind,
Then couch'd him down beside the hind,
And quaked among the mountain fern,
To hear that sound so dull and stern."
Than the whole of the trial and doom of poor Constance, who "loved
not wisely but too well," in the second canto of Marmion, even Scott
never wrote anything more solemn or terrible.