LITTLE HARVESTS.
It is remarkable how many little opportunities are offered to the ingenious countryman who may be out of work of picking up unconsidered trifles. I have come upon men digging up dandelion roots, still much used by druggists, at the price of 7s. a hundredweight. A fair trade is found for fallen acorns especially in districts where cottagers keep pigs. Seldom have mushroom and blackberry-pickers made themselves quite such as a nuisance as during this autumn. It has beeome necessary to take measures against the briar- hunters ; and the counties begin to realize the threat of a wholesale onslaught on the hollies. It is complained in Bucks that there is a growing fashion for beech leaves ; and it is true that all through this autumn Covent Garden has been well supplied with branches of a size almost large enough to spoil the physiognomy of a tree.
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