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