a reason
which [241] induced the Romans to name this variety, Vitis apiaria.
"_On attrape plus de mouches avec le miel qu' avec le vinaigre_"--
say the French.

In Portugal, grape juice is boiled down with quinces into a sort of
jam--the progenitor of all marmalades. The original grape vine is
supposed to have been indigenous to the shores of the Caspian Sea.

If eaten to excess, especially by young persons, grapes will make
the tongue and the lining membrane of the mouth sore, just as honey
often acts. For this reason, both grapes and honey do good to the
affection known as thrush, with sore raw mouth, and tongue in
ulcerative white patches, coming on as a derangement of the health.

GRASSES.

Our abundant English grasses furnish nutritious herbage and
farinaceous seeds, whilst their stems and leaves prove useful for
textile purposes. Furthermore, some few of them possess distinctive
medicinal virtues, with mucilaginous roots, and may be properly
classed among Herbal Simples.

The Sweet-scented Vernal Grass (Anthoxanthum, with Yellow
Anthers) gives its delightfully characteristic odour to newly mown
meadow hay, and has a pleasant aroma of Woodruff. But it is
specially provocative of hay fever and hay asthma with persons
liable to suffer from these distressing ailments. Accordingly, a
medicinal tincture is made (H.) from this grass with spirit of wine,
and if some of the same is poured into the open hand-palms for the
volatile aroma to be sniffed well into the nose and throat, immediate
relief is afforded during an attack. At the same time three or four
drops of the tincture should be taken as a dose with water, and [242]
repeated at intervals of twenty or thirty minutes, as needed.

The flowers contain "coumarin," and their volatile pollen
impregnates the atmosphere in early summer. The sweet perfume is
due chiefly to benzoic acid, such as is used for making scented
pastilles, or Ribbon of Bruges for fumigation.

Again, the Couch Grass, Dog Grass, or Quilch (_Triticum repens_)
found freely in road-sides, fields, and waste places, has been
employed from remote times as a vulnerary, and to relieve
difficulties of urination. Our English wheat has been evolved
therefrom.

In modern days its infusion--of the root--is generally regarded as a
soothing diuretic, helpful to the bladder and kidneys. Formerly, this
was a popular drink to purify the blood in the Spring. But no special
constituents have been discov