PIGHTLE.

The plumage is in general brown, of various shades; legs and toes yellow-brown. The whole length of the bird is eleven inches and a half.

5. The passenger pigeon (C. Ectopistes migratorius). This beautiful bird is a native of North America. Its appearance on our coasts is very rare. The whole length of an adult male bird is seventeen inches. Yarrell's Brit. Birds, vol. ii. p. 249. 276.) PIGEON'S DUNG. See DOVE COTE nd GUANO.

PIGHTLE. A provincial term applied › a small inclosure or croft.

PIKE. A word of various signification 1 different districts. In some counties it applied to a prong, or what is generally lled a fork used for carrying straw, &c. om the barn, cocking of hay, &c. In hers it signifies a sort of stacklet or load, ck of hay, &c. In the midland districts means to glean.

PIKE. (Esox Lucius.) This is a wellown indigenous fish, whose voracity is torious. They may be caught with alost any bait. The size of the English ke is in some instances very great; it has en caught weighing ninety pounds. The ke is a long fish, with a very flat head. 3 usual colour is a pale olive grey, deepest the back. They cast their spawn in arch and April, and are in season from e end of May to the beginning of Feuary. They are called jack till they beme twenty-four inches long. (Walton's gler; Blaine's Rural Sports.)

PILCHARD. A fish which greatly renbles the common herring; and though body is somewhat shorter, yet it is conerably thicker, and contains a larger >portion of oil. Pilchards appear in exsive shoals on the coasts of Cornwall and vonshire in July; and the fishery gives ployment to a large number of persons. e garbage, refuse salt, and wasted fish, extensively used as a manure in the stern districts. See FISH AS A MANure. PILE. A sharpened beam of wood driven wn into the ground to protect the banks rivers or for other similar purposes. Pile also provincially applied to the breaking the awns of thrashed barley, and to a ide of grass.

PILING-IRON. A tool used in breakgoff the awns of barley, and sometimes e tails of oats, an operation which with e farmers is called piling barley. See

UMMELLER.

PILEWORT CROWFOOT. See CROW

ют.

PILL WORT. (Pilularia, from pilula, pill; shape of the heads containing the productive organs.) The creeping pill

PINE-APPLE.

wort, or pepper-grass (P. globulifera), is an obscure little plant, found in damp meadows among grass, especially where they have been overflowed with water during winter. It is a perennial in habit, putting forth brown flowers in June and July. (Smith's Eng. Flora. vol. iv. p. 341.)

PIMPERNEL. (Anagallis.) A genus of very pretty interesting plants of easy culture. There are three indigenous species.

1. The common scarlet pimpernel (4. arvensis), which is common in fields and gardens. The beautiful bright scarlet flowers close at the approach of rain, as farmers and shepherds in general well know; hence it has been popularly called the "poor man's weather glass." This is an annual species. The root is small; stem branched from the lower part, often dotted with purple; more or less procumbent, square. Leaves ovate, manyribbed, dotted with purple at the back.

2. Blue pimpernel. (A. cœrulea.) This is also an annual species, found in cornfields, but more rare than the last, which it very much resembles in every part, except that the corolla is smaller, of a most vivid blue, paler beneath; its margin strongly, acutely, and unequally notched. Whether a species or variety, the blue pimpernel is reported to be constantly propagated by seed.

3. Bog pimpernel. (A. tenella.) This species is perennial, and is not uncommon on wet, spongy, mossy bogs. The root and stems are creeping; the whole plant smooth, except the stamens, depressed, branched, with small roundish leaves, somewhat pointed, stalked, finely dotted underneath. Flowers erect, rose-coloured, on slender stalks, much longer than the leaves, and becoming twisted when in fruit. The bog pimpernel yields to none of our wild plants in elegance. (Smith's Eng. Flor. vol. i. p. 280.)

PIMPERNEL, BASTARD. See CHAFF

WEED.

PIMPERNEL, WATER. See BROOK

WEED.

PINE APPLE. (Ananassa sativa; from nanas, the Guiana name.) A tropical fruit, native of South America and some of the West India Islands, which is now extensively cultivated in hot-houses in this country, and is well known to every one. The plants that yield this very superior fruit, so much esteemed for its luscious aromatic flavour, were first brought to this country in 1699 by the Earl of Portland; but it is said it was first grown in this country by Sir Matthew Dickens, at Richmond, where fruit was produced in 1715. There are now as many as thirty distinct varieties cultivated in this country, but of these only a few merit cultivation, such as the common

broad-leaved queen, Ripley queen, and lemon queen; black Jamaica; New and Old Providence; Antigua; Montserrat; and two or three others of very good quality. The plants are obtained from suckers and from the crown of the fruit. (Paxton's Bot. Dict., Phillips's Fruits; Speechley on the Culture of the Pine Apple.)

PINE TREE. (Pinus, from pinos; a Greek word used by Theophrastus, to designate a pine tree; and some authors derive it from the Celtic pin or pyn, a mountain or rock, alluding to the habitat of the tree.) This much-esteemed and well-known genus, belonging to the gymnospermous division of exogens, contains some of the trees of most universal use in civilised society, and which form a very important article of commerce, both in Europe and America. The genus Pinus is distinguished from the firs, by the leaves being needle-shaped and grouped in pairs, or in three, four, or five together; held, as it were, together by a sheath at their base. Most, if not all of the species, are highly deserving of culture, being very ornamental and beautiful in every stage of their growth. They will succeed on almost any kind of soil, but to bring the timber to its greatest state of perfection, a somewhat loamy surface soil and a cool subsoil are requisite. Young plants may be obtained by a variety of methods. All the species may be propagated by layers, by inarching on nearly allied kinds, and by herbaceous grafting; many may also be increased by cuttings, but the speediest way is by seed, and which process I shall briefly notice. In some of the species the cones attain their full size the first year, but in most not till the end of the second autumn. The cones of P. sylvestris, and those allied to it, open of themselves shortly after being gathered from the tree, and spread out in the sun; but the cones of P. Pinaster, P. Pinea, and similar kinds, do not, though treated in the same manner; and open their scales only after several months. The seed should be sown on a finely-prepared rather sandy soil, in March or April, The seeds of the most common kinds are always sown on beds, and after being gently beaten down are slightly covered with light soil.

There are upwards of fifty species of pines, and the appearance of the tree, as well as the quality of the timber, varies with the species and with the situation in which each grows. Generally speaking, the timber is hardest and best in exposed cold situations, and where its growth is slow. I shall only notice those species, the timber of which is most in use in this country.

1. The Scotch pine (P. sylvestris) is a native of the Scotch mountains, Denmark,

Norway, and of most northern parts of Europe. It is straight, abruptly branched, rising in favourable situations to the beigh: of eighty or ninety feet, and being from three to four feet in diameter. The leave are in pairs, short and glaucous. The cones are ovate-conical, acute, stalked, generally in pairs. The scales are obtuse; the crest of the anthers is very small; the flower appear in May and June. It is at peris tion when seventy or eighty years old. The colour of the wood differs considerably: i is usually of a reddish yellow, or of a boy colour, of various degrees of brightnes Scotch fir is the most durable of the pin species. Its lightness and stiffness ret it superior to any other material for beans girders, joists, rafters, &c. It is much us. in joiner's work, as it is more easily wrough stands betters, is much cheaper, and nearly, if not quite as durable as oak. Th wood of the Scotch fir, grown in Engin is inferior to that in Scotland; and th tree is chiefly used as a nurse for ot trees in young plantations. Tar, pitch, an common turpentine are obtained from Scotch fir, and when the tree has attain to a proper age, it is not injured by th extraction of these products.

2. The Norway spruce pine. (P Abies, Lin.) The white spruce (P.alba), the black spruce (P. nigra), although ofci classed as belonging to this genus, yet a in truth firs; and they are now proper termed Abies excelsa, Ă. alba, and Å. TO but as they were not mentioned under they are here described. The Nor spruce is a noble tree, rising in a stra stem, from 100 to 150 feet in height. Is leaves are tetragonal and mucronate: cones cylindrical, pendulous; the scales buk. rhomboid, flat, jagged, and bent backw at the margin. It is a native of Norms Russia, and the north of Europe, in mos springy places. It is cultivated in 13 country. It yields the timber known * the name of white fir, or Christiana da from its being always imported in deal i planks. The Norway spruce thrives 1 well in Britain, and produces timber E. inferior to the foreign; it is somewhat ster and the knots are extremely hard.

3. White spruce (Pinus, or Abies an is a comparatively small tree, seldom risi.. more than forty or fifty feet in he The leaves are glaucous, quadrangular, p gent, and spreading equally round branch. The leaves are narrow, oval, a minate, with even entire scales. I si native of the coldest regions of North Arica. The Indians in Čanada use the fir of the roots steeped in water, as thread " sow together their bark canoes. The t

PINE TREE.

is of little value, but the bark contains nic acid, which renders it useful in ming.

4 Black spruce (Pinus or Abies nigra). e leaves resemble those of the Norway uce, but are shorter. The cones are -shaped, with rugged, rounded scales. is a native of the coldest regions of North erica, where it abounds in swampy situons; and rises seventy or eighty feet in ght. The timber is strong, light, and stic, admirably adapted for the spars and rds of ships. When tapped, it yields at is termed the essence of spruce. 5. The stone pine (Pinus Pinea) is a e pine, a native of the South of Europe, the Levant; but it is easily naturalised our climate. It belongs to the class of e, the scales of whose cones are obtuse at apex. The trunk is erect, the leaves in rs, stiff, dark green. The cones are ndish, very smooth, with truncated es, and contain large oblong seeds with hort wing. The timber is white and able.

The other pines of this class are-P. puo, P. unicinata, P. resinera, P. halepenP. brutia, P. Banksiana, P. Pallasiana, Austriaca, and P. Laricio. Those with es in pairs, and having cones spiny at apex, are— P. pungens, P. mitis, P. 8, and P. Pinaster. Pines with leaves hrees, with the scales of the cones obare P. sinensis, P. insignis, P. canasis, P. Ocote, and P. patula: and among e with the scales of the spiny, we findsouthern pine (P. australis), a native Virginia, characterised by an erect, cyrical trunk, long leaves, three in each th, grass-green. The cones egg-shaped, n or eight inches long, with depressed es, armed with a sharp spine. The tree seventy or eighty feet in height; yields ellent timber, light, clean, and durable, abundance of tar. It does not succeed England. The others are- - P. Tæda, igida, P. serotina, P. ponderosa, P. Saana, P. Coulteri, P. longifolia, P. Geliana. The pines with five leaves in a th, and obtuse cones, are-P.leiophylla, Montezuma, P. filifolia, P. Apulcensis, seudostrobus, P. Russelliana, P. DevonLP Hartweg. With spiny scales of cones-P. occidentalis, P. macrophylla. th flat scales, compressed at the apex,Cembra, P. Strobus, P. excelsa, P. Lamtiana, and one or two others. For a great mass of other useful inmation relative to these fine trees, ind for every thing that is necessary to >w respecting them, we refer the reader Loudon's Arboretum et Fruticetum Brinicum, a work which ought to be in the

PIPE CLAY.

hands of every lover of hardy trees and shrubs. The Norway pine yields Burgundy pitch, and common frankincense, by spontaneous exudation. (Paxton's Bot. Dict.; Phillips's Sylv. Flor.; M'Culloch's Com. Dict.) See FIRS and LARCH.

PINE, THE GROUND. See BUGLE. PIN-FALLOW. A provincial term applied to winter fallow.

PINK. (Dianthus; from dios, divine; and anthos, a flower, in reference to the fragrance of the blossoms and the unrivalled neatness of the flowers.) A truly beautiful and ornamental genus, containing some of the most prized flowers we possess, on account of the beauty and fragrance of their blossoms, and their foliage, which is as green and vivid in winter as it is in summer. The genus is divided into those with solitary and those with aggregate flowers. The clove pink or carnation (D. caryophyllus) is an indigenous perennial. Smith says it is the origin of all our carnations. (See CARNATION.) The other species of this division is the maiden pink (D. deltoides); and with it may be classed the mountain pink, which bears single-flowered stems, with hairy, unequally notched petals. The aggregate pinks are Deptford pink (D. Armeria), a beautiful species, with small inodorous flowers, speckled pink and white. The stems are leafy, forked, corymbose; the leaves linear, lanceolate, keeled, erect; but the lowermost spreading. In the same division is the proliferous pink (D. prolifera), an annual. The rarer kinds of pinks should be grown in pots, so that they can be protected in winter; they all delight in loamy soil, mixed with a little rotten dung or decayed leaves and sand. They may be increased by seeds or cuttings; the last method is preferable. The cuttings should be planted out under a glass, about the middle of June, and if they are placed on a gentle hot-bed, they will be ready for planting out in about three weeks. The annual and biennial kinds merely require sowing in the open border, where they will grow and flower freely. (Paxton's Bot. Dict.; Smith's Eng. Flor. vol. ii. p. 285.) PIONY. See PEONY.

PIP. A disease among poultry, consisting in a white thin skin, or film, growing upon or under the tip of the tongue, which hinders the feeding. It is supposed to arise from the drinking of foul water, or eating filthy meat; it is usually cured by pulling off the film with the fingers, and washing the part with a solution of common salt.

PIPE CLAY. A species of clay abounding in Devonshire and other parts of England, employed in the manufacture of earthenware. See MIXTURE OF SOILS.

PIPEWORT. (Eriocaulon; from erion, wool, and caulon, a stem, in allusion to the woolly stems.) These are very interesting plants, particularly the jointed pipewort (E. septangulare), an aquatic species which flourishes exceedingly well in the lakes of Scotland, where, in some parts as well as in Ireland, it is found in abundance. The roots are creeping, with numerous, long, white, finely-jointed radicles, matted together in dense tufts, so as to form floating islands. Leaves radical, numerous, channelled, smooth, two or three inches long, tapering gradually from a broadish base to a capillary point, all finely cellular internally. Stalk three or four times as tall, with a tubular sheath at the base, solitary, simple, naked, a little twisted, having about seven angles. Flowers solitary, terminal, almost globular, like a white double daisy, though not half so large, finely downy, tinged with purple. (Smith's Eng. Flor. vol. iv. p. 140.) PIPIT. (Anthus). In ornithology, the name of two British birds.

The tree pipit (A. arboreus) is a summer visitor to these islands, arriving about the third week in April. Its nest is on the ground in woods and plantations, or under rushes in hedge-rows, formed of moss with fibrous roots and dried grass. Eggs four or five, whose colour is greyish white spotted with purple brown or purple red. bird feeds on insects and worms. The colour of the beak is dark brown; the neck, head, back, and wings, olive brown; the chin and throat pale brownish white; the whole length of the bird is about six inches and a half.

This

The meadow pipit (A. pratensis) is a resident in the British islands during the year. It tenants the commons, wastes, moors, meadows, and marsh lands. It feeds on worms, insects, and small slugs. It builds its nest on the ground of dried bents, lined with a few hairs. The eggs are four or five, of a reddish brown colour, mottled over with darker brown. The egg of the cuckoo is more frequently deposited and hatched in the nest of the meadow pipit, than in that of any other bird. The beak of this little songster is dark brown. The feathers of the head, neck, back, wing, and upper tail-coverts, dark brown in the middle, but much lighter brown at the margin; the length of the bird is six inches. (Yarrell's Brit. Birds, vol. v. p. 384-389.)

PISTIL. In botany, the columnar body in the centre of a flower, consisting commonly of three parts; viz. the ovary, styles, and stigmas. It is one of the essential parts of the flower; and when it is absent the flower is sterile. It receives the pollen, and communicates its stimulus to the ovules;

without which the seeds are imperfect, mi do not germinate.

PITCH. (Germ. pech.) In commerce, the residuum which remains on inspissatar tar, or boiling it down to dryness. It w a black solid substance, with a shining fra ture, softens at 90°, and becomes liquid e boiling water. It is extensively used ship-building, and for other purposes. Lay quantities are manufactured in Great Br tain, but not sufficient to supply the g demand. The duty on importation is lux per cwt. In husbandry, pitch signifie a fork-full of hay, corn, or straw, or as m as is raised to the load, stack, or mo one time.

PLANKS. (Germ. planken; Dan.pini Fr. planches.) Thick strong boards cut fr various kinds of wood, especially oak a pine. Planks are usually of the thickes of from one inch to four. They are ported in large quantities from the northe ports of Europe, and from several parts North America. Those employed for ing sheds or farm out-houses should tarred, or steeped in corrosive sublimat PLANT. In natural history. BOTANY, ACCLIMATATION, TEMPERATUEL, EARTHS, GASES, WATER, ORGANIC CH MISTRY, &c.

PLANTAIN. (Plantago; derived fr planta, the sole of the foot; resemblance." the leaves.) A genus of plants, the gres number of the species of which are weeds: they are generally almost steaks and for the most part perennial. There five native species:

1. Greater plantain, or way-bres major), which is very common in mesos pastures, and waste and cultivated gra perennial, and in flower all summer. is root consists of many long stout fibres. I leaves are radical, numerous, broad, ma seven or nine ribs, on channelled re stalks, often longer than themselves; ATwavy or toothed. Flowers on long go small, whitish, with reddish anthers numerous; the spikes, each on a naked radical stalk. The seeds, which angular, in a membranous capsule, ar food of small birds. The rose-shaped va and the panicled one are often calt in gardens for the sake of curiosity, and afford remarkable instances of vege transformation. This species, like the vis genus, in general, is mucilaginous, and som what astringent, qualities which rena“ not altogether an useless rustic medi Cows and horses do not relish this pla but it is eaten by sheep, goats, and swi

2. Hoary plantain (P. media). 24 species grows abundantly in chalky gravelly hills. The root is rather wa

PLANTAIN.

e leaves are ovate, downy, all pressed se to the ground, hoary, entire, with five seven ribs. Flower stalks round, taller in the foregoing, five-angled, hoary, nearly isted and smooth. Spike an inch long, h black imbricated bractes. Corolla e, with large cream-coloured anthers. ke shorter and thicker, very dense in ry part. Seeds solitary. The hoary ntain, a great and lasting nuisance in grass-plats, is best killed by a drop of olic acid on the crown of the root, ch it never long survives. Its medical lities are like the former.

Ribwort plantain, or rib-grass (P. lanta) is also a very common species in dows and pastures. The leaves are erous, erect, deep green, acute, each ring at the base into a broad, flat, ed foot-stalk, accompanied at its inon with large tufts of soft, white, woolly s. Flower-stalks taller than the leaves, vise woolly at the base, five-angled, intermediate furrows, nearly smooth, ed. Spike ovate, an inch long, with ‹ imbricated bractes, occasionally leafy e base. This species makes a part of meadow hay, and has been cultivated crop, but seems to be now disused. e are said not to eat it willingly, at by itself. The total absence of ribin marshy lands is a certain criterion eir indifferent quality; and in proporis such soils are improved by draining, lant will flourish and abound. Sea plantain (P. maritima). 3 in muddy salt marshes, and about the hs of large rivers. It is perennial, flowers in August and September. root is long and cylindrical; herb vain luxuriance. The leaves are all al, numerous, from four to twelve s long, dull-green, linear, channelled, , nearly entire. Flower-stalks round, r than the leaves, erect, smooth. cylindrical, slender, many-flowered, , with fleshy keeled bractes, not longer the calyx. Sheep appear to be very of this species.

This

Buck's-horn plantain, or star of the (P. Coronopus). This is an annual 28, which flourishes on dry, sandy, or lly ground, flowering from June to 1st. The root is tapering; leaves pale, , in pinnatifid pointed segments. Spikes rous, dense, cylindrical, varying greatly gth, on spreading hairy stalks. (Smith's Flor. vol. i. p. 213.) LANTAIN, THE WATER. See ER-PLANTAIN.

ANTATION. A piece of ground ted with trees, for the purpose of proog timber or coppice wood; and the

PLANTATION.

term is also applied to a collection of trees or shrubs placed in the ground for their beauty or usefulness. It is a theme highly important to the landholder, and is one too interesting to the cultivator to be passed over slightly in a work of this character.

For the correct consideration of the best mode of forming plantations of timber trees, several circumstances must, of necessity, be taken into the planter's account, of which the principal are — 1st, The composition of the soil; 2dly, The trees to which that soil is best adapted; 3dly, The elevation, or inclination of the land: an inattention to these three primary questions has been the source of much waste of time, of labour, and of capital.

In the examination of this subject, I propose to divide my account of the timber trees best adapted to poor soils, into four classes; viz. those best fitted for, 1st, chalk soils; 2dly, for clay; 3dly, for sandy lands; 4thly, for peat earths; and, in so doing, I shall conclude, that the land is planted in the usual way without any addition of earths to render the soil more permanently fertile, although I am well aware what excellent results attend the efforts of those planters who have thus, by altering as it were the composition of their land, rendered it capable of producing almost any description of timber. And in this, as in all researches where vegetation is concerned, nature is ever our guide and instructor. We find indigenous on the chalks, the beech, the birch, and the ash; the oak tenants the clay formation, the elm delights in rich alluvial bottoms, and in warm sheltered situations. To the sand is left the fir tribe, the ash, and the birch; which last most picturesque tree will endure a climate, and vegetate on soils, far too cold and too barren for any other to exist in. On the warm gravels, and on deep light loams, we find the Spanish chestnut located; and if, on even the peat, we only occasionally meet with a few straggling mountain ash and Scotch firs, it is not because the composition of the soil is too poor to sustain a better description of timber tree, but that the soil is usually saturated with water, too much impregnated with the salts of iron for any plants to be successfully planted till that corrosive moisture is removed.

Then, again, as regards the temperature best adapted to the tree, much too little attention is commonly paid. The fir tribe I have ever found to delight in dry cool elevations. I have generally failed whenever I have attempted to make the larch grow in warm rich bottoms; but there is hardly a dry spot in England too cold or too poor for its successful cultivation. The