5. The poles of alder are as useful as those of willows; but the coals far exceed them, especially for gun-powder: The wood is likewise useful for piles, pumps, hop-poles, water-pipes, troughs, sluces, small trays, and trenchers, wooden-heels; the bark is precious to dyers, and some tanners, and leather-dressers make use of it; and with it, and the fruits (instead of galls) they compose an ink. The fresh leaves alone applied to the naked soal of the foot, infinitely refresh the surbated traveller. The bark macerated in water, with a little rust of iron, makes a black dye, which may also be us’d for ink: The interior rind of the black alder purges all hydropic, and serous humours; but it must be dry’d in the shade, and not us’d green, and the decoction suffer’d to settle two or three days, before it be drunk. Being beaten with vinegar, it heals the itch certainly: As to other uses the swelling bunches, which are now and then found in the old trees, afford the inlayer pieces curiously chambletted, and very hard, _&c._ but the faggots better for the fire, than for the draining of grounds by placing them (as the guise is) in the trenches; which old rubbish of flints, stones, and the like gross materials, does infinitely exceed, because it is for ever, preserves the drains hollow, and being a little moulded over, will produce good grass, without any detriment to the ground; but this is a secret, not yet well understood, and would merit an express paragraph, were it here seasonable, ....._& jam nos inter opacas Musa vocat salices_....... FOOTNOTES: {157:1} Tunc alnos primum fluvii sensêre cavatas. _Georg. 1._ {157:2} Nec non & torrentem undam levis innatat alnus Missa Pado ............ 2. CHAPTER XIX. _Of the Withy, Sallow, Ozier, and Willow._