[1] Thomas Elliot, who for some twenty years was shepherd and general manager for one of my father's tenants at Childrey.
[2] Full details of the cost and method of making dew ponds, as well as other information about them, are contained in the prize essay of the late Rev. J. Clutterbuck, Rector of Long Wittenham, in the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society. Vol. I., §S. Part 2.
[3] In the Isle of Wight, on Brightstone Downs, about 400 feet above the sea, is a dew pond with a _concrete_ bottom, which has never run dry for thirty years.
A friend informs me that he has found a quantity of woad growing on the Chilterns above the Thame, enough to stain blue a whole tribe of ancient Britons, and also that on a wall by the roadside between Reading and Pangbourne he discovered several plants of the deadly nightshade, or "dwale." This word is said to be derived from Old French _deuil_, mourning; but its present form looks very English. The only cases of plant poisoning now common among grown-up people are those caused by mistaking fungi for mushrooms, or by making rash experiments in cooking the former, of which Gerard quaintly says: "Beware of licking honey among the thorns, lest the sweetness of the one do not countervail the sharpness and pricking of the other." But with such a list of toxic plants as our flora can show there is always danger from certain species whose properties are quite unknown to ordinary mortals. Are they equally unknown to the herbalists and that mysterious trade-union of country-women and collectors of herbs by the roadside who deal with them? Probably the trade in poisons not used for serious purposes, but for what used in some parts of England to be called "giving a dose," a punishment for unfaithful, unkind, or drunken husbands, still exists as it did some forty years ago. The collectors of medicinal plants cut from the roadside and rubbish heaps, plants whose "operations" for good are quite well known, and have been handed down by tradition for centuries, cannot be absolutely ignorant of the other side of the picture, the toxic properties which other plants, or sometimes even the same plants, contain. Foxglove, for instance, from which _digitalis_ used as a medicine is extracted, is a good example of these kill-or-cure plants. Every portion of the plant is poisonous, leaves, flowers, stalks, and berries. It affects the heart, and though useful in cases in which the pulsations are abnormal, its symptoms when taken by persons in ordinary health are those of heart failure. Thus foxglove is not only a dangerous but a "subtle" poison.