Page:Willich, A. F. M. - The Domestic Encyclopædia (Vol. 1, 1802).djvu/406

374&#93; ■74] BUC Kent, Lincolnshire, and York- shire: it sometimes attains the height of eight or ten feet. Its bark is light-brown, the wood white, the small leaves of a sea- green colour, but silvery white be- low. The leaves appear early in spring ; the yellow flowers in June or July ; the fine red berries late in autumn. In situations contiguous to the sea-shore, or the banks of rivulets, this shrub eminently deserves to be cultivated, as it is well calculat- ed to bind a sandy soil, and to prevent the water from penetrating through banks and fences. It may be raised from seeds, but more expeditiously by planting lay- ers, or propagating it from the very abundant spreading roots. On account of its thorny point,, it affords excellent hedges, even on a sandv soil. Although cows refuse the leaves of the sea buck-thorn, yet they are browsed upon by goats, sheep, and horses. The berries arc stro y acid, with an austere vinous fla- vour : in Lapland, they are pickled and used as spice, but the fisher- men of the Gulph of Bothnia pre- pare from diem a rob, which, added to fresh fish, imparts a very grateful flavour. From the leaves of this shrub, M. Suckow obtained an agree- able dark-thrown dye for wool and silk, first treated with vitriol of iron : Dambourney succeeded in producing a similar colour on cloth that bad been previously steeped in a solution of bismuth. BUCK-WHEAT, the Polygo- num fagopyxum, L. a species of the Persicaria, also called snake- weed, bucke, branks, French wheat, or crap. As this useful plant requires no botanical descrip- BUC tlon, we shall proceed to state its most approved method of culture, and important uses in agriculture : both subjects being intimately con- nected. Buck-wheat was introduced into Europe nearly four centuries since ; and, according to Gerard's Her- bal, cultivated in England, about the year 150/. — It is a native, of the northern parts of Asia. Dur- ing the last thirty years it has ex- cited the attention of able agricul- turists, who have furnished us with the following result of their ex- perience. This grain delights in a mellow, dry, loose, sandy soil, but does not thrive so well in a free loamy stone-brash, and should never be sown in wet, poachy ground. It requires little or no manure, but frequent sun-shine. On heath? newly ploughed up, the turf of which has been burnt, or that have been manured with wood- ashes, its vegetation ; :> luxuri it, The propei ison for sowing is the last week ; ing of June; and though it ma] be sown much earlier of lal it, in the former ca^e it is < pi to the night- frosts of April and ^i^y, or, in the latter, it mav be too late for arriving at maturity. In the year 1787, however, a crop of buck? wheat was obtained, that had been sown so late as the 22d of July. A shower of rain, after the seed is harrowed in, greatly promotes its growth, and it generally appears above ground in five or six days. Buck- wheat is in flower through- out the summer, and would yield much larger crops, if all the grains would uniformly ripen, and could be collected at the same time. From one to three bushels are sown on each acre, in this country ; and the Germans calculate sixty pounds weight