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of 21 species of composite plants, all but one are peculiar to that group. Some few species make the most remarkable leaps, being common to countries at a great distance from each other, while absent, or nearly so, from the intervening ones. Thus in the Falkland2 islands, more than thirty plants, natives of Britain, are found wild. The common quakinggrass has been found in the interior of the country at the Cape of Good Hope; and almost all the lichens brought from the southern hemisphere by Sir James Ross, amounting to 200 species, are found in the northern hemisphere, and chiefly in Europe. Several of our commonest plants, as the bullrush, the reed, the marsh-mallow, the bird's-foot trefoil, the knotgrass, with several others, are found again in Australia. For this various distribution of plants it is difficult to account, but we are inclined to say with Milton :—

"Jehovah spake

And Earth, an infant, naked as she came
Out of the womb of Chaos, straight put on
Her beautiful attire, and decked her robe
Of verdure with ten thousand glorious flower,
Exhaling incense; crown'd her mountain-heads
With cedars, train'd her vines around their girdles,
And pour'd spontaneous harvests at their feet."

1. State the number of distinct species of plants known.

2. What modifies greatly the diffusion of plants?

3. Explain how it is that man cannot work very laboriously in tropical countries. 4. Name some vegetable productions found there.

5. Where do the corn-plants succeed best?

6. Mention various wise ends served by this arrangement of the vegetable productions of our globe.

7. Say where the daisy is found, and where not.

8. What mean you by cereals?

9. Up to what degree of latitude will they grow?

10. Name the native country of the potato.

11. What tribe of plants belongs exclusively to America?-to Cape of Good Hope ?-to St. Helena &c.?

12. Repeat the lines of Milton about the first production of plants.

ORANGE HARVEST IN THE AZORES.*

(From Bullar's "Winter in the Azores.")

* Azores, or Western Islands (Portug. Açores, Hawks) a group of 9 Islands in N. Atlantic Ocean, 800 miles from Portugal, so called from the great number of falcons found on them. The principal are, St. Michael, Terceira, Pico, and Fayal. There are exported from St. Michael, chiefly to Britain, annually, 90,000 boxes of oranges value £40,000.

kernel or seed of fruit.

Rind, n. husk; bark; skin of fruit.
Pip, n. a disease of fowls; the | Produce, n. (L. pro, duco), that

2 Falkland Islands; a group in the S. Atlantic Ocean, to the E. of the straits of Magellan, consisting of two large and a number of small islands. They are rocky, but abound with seals, and contain large and safe harbours. A British settlement has been formed there.

which is brought forth or yielded; fruit. Lay'er, n. a stratum or bed of clay or sand &c.; a shoot or twig of a plant, not detached from the stock, inserted in the earth for growth or propagation.

|

Ex-port', v. (L. ex, porto), to carry
out of a country.

Bi'as, n. inclination or bent to one
side.
Sat'u-rate, v. (L. satio), to fill till
no more can be received; to fill
to excess.

MANY of the trees are a hundred years old. The thinness of the rind of a St. Michael's orange, and its freedom from pips, depend on the age of the tree. As the vigour of the plant declines, the peel becomes thinner, and the seeds gradually diminish till they disappear altogether. Thus the oranges most in esteem are the produce of barren trees, and those deemed least palatable come from trees in full vigour. The number of the trees is increased by layers, which, at the end of two years, are cut away from the parent stem; the process of raising from seed being seldom if ever adopted, on account of the very slow growth of the plants so raised.

In Fayal, the branches, by means of strings, are strained away from the centre into the shape of a cup, or of an open umbrella turned upside down, a plan which conduces much to early ripening, as the sun is thus allowed to penetrate, and the branches to receive a free circulation of air. To shield them from the winds, the gardens are protected by high walls, whilst the trees themselves are planted among rows of fayas, firs, and camphor-trees. Without these precautions, the windfalls would do away with the profits, none of the "ground-fruit,” as it is called, being exported to England. Filled with these magnificent shrubs, mixed with the lofty arbutus, many of the gardens presented an imposing scene

"Groves whose rich fruit, burnished with golden rind,
Hung amiable, and of delicious taste."

One was especially charming, which covered the sides of a glen or ravine. On a near approach, scores of boys were seen scattered among the branches, gathering fruit into small baskets, hallooing and laughing, and finally emptying their gatherings into larger baskets underneath. Many large trees on the steep slopes of the glen, lay uprooted, either from their load of fruit, the high winds, or the weight of the boys. Besides, the fall of a tree might not be unamusing; and in so light a soil, where the roots are superficial, a slight strain would give it bias enough. The trees lie where they fall; and some that had evidently come

down many years before, were still alive and bearing good crops. The fruit is not ripe till March or April, nor do the natives generally eat it before that time. The boys, however, that gather it, are marked exceptions. They are of a yellow tint, as if saturated with orange juice.

The process of packing the oranges is expeditious and simple. In some open plot of ground, you find a group of men and children, seated on a heap of the calyx leaves, or husks, of Indian corn, in which each orange is to be wrapt up. The operation begins. A child hands to a workman, who squats beside him, a prepared husk; it is snatched from the child, wrapt round the orange, and passed to the next, who, with the chest between his legs, places it in the orange box, the parties continuing the work with amazing rapidity, until at length the chest is filled to overflowing. Two men now hand it to the carpenter, who bends over it several thin boards, secured with a willow band, presses it with his naked foot as he saws of the ragged ends of the boards, and dispatches it to the ass that stands ready for lading. Two chests are slung on its back by cords, in the figure of 8; and the driver, taking his goad, and uttering his well-known cry, trudges off to town.

1. What are the Azores?

2. What sort of oranges are produced by old trees, and what by trees in full vigour ?

3. How is the number of trees increased?

4. What means are used in Fayal to

ripen the fruit early?

5. Of what colour are the boys who gather the fruit?

6. Describe the process of packing. 7. What is the value of the oranges annually exported from St. Michael? 8. Where are they chiefly sent?

FOREST FLOWERS.

(From "English Forests and Forest-Trees.")

"While others do the garden choose,
Where flowers are regular and profuse,
Come, thou, to dell and lonely lea,
And cull the wild-flowers all with me."

THE ETTRICK SHEPHERD.

A TREE is a grand object in the scale of creation; but a little forest-flower, though not grand, is beautiful. In almost every attribute it is the reverse of the tree; but nevertheless it is as perfect in all its parts, as delicate in its organization, and displays with equal force and clearness the transcendent skill of that Mighty One whose minutest work is as perfect as his greatest. The little forest-flowers give an additional charm

and variety to our forests; they nestle snugly at the roots of some giant tree, or sprinkle the woodland path with various hues, or cover the sides of some little dell, or spring up in rich profusion by the side of a mossy bank, or grow in luxuriance beside some forest streamlet, which prattles along " singing a quiet tune" to the woods and flowers. There are people whose minds can never be brought to recognise beauty in wild-flowers; they look on them as raw material, which can never be lovely; and to indulge their desire to see beautiful flowers, they go to nursery-grounds and hot-houses and flower-shows, where, doubtless, they see magnificent flowers, rivalled, if even rivalled, only in the tropics. These, however, are not nature's handiwork. The art of man has brought these to such a high state of perfection; but the original, the basis, the flower, without which these could never have been, is to be found only in the forest or the field. Man hath found out many inventions; but though he may make out of the wild violet the most lovely flowers, he cannot make a wild violet itself.

The young recollections of most of us are interwoven, not with garden, but with wild flowers. It was beautifully said by Campbell:

"Ye field flowers! the gardens eclipse ye, 'tis true,
But wildings of nature, I dote upon you,

For ye waft me to summers of old!

When the fields gleamed around me with fairy delight,
And daisies and buttercups gladdened my sight,

Like garlands of silver and gold!"

There are few of us who cannot echo the same sentiment, and few to whom the sight of "the flowers of the forest" will not bring up similar recollections.

Among the first of the flowers that appear in the forest, are the daisy, the violet, and the primrose. What can make a more beautiful trio? All three are fragile and delicate, modest and retiring; but they star the banks and the woodland with a glorious tricolour of white, violet, and yellow. How simplelooking they are! and yet take the little daisy, and examine it carefully, and you will see in the flower an organization so complicated, and yet so harmonious, that man, with all his skill, 66 never can come near." And the little sweet-smelling violets, what universal favourites they are! and how pleasant it is of a morning, when one cannot wander away to a forest, to buy a bunch in Covent Garden, and make them a sweet

desk-companion for the rest of the day! It is delightful to sit on a primrose bank, and, overshadowed by some tree, to pull one of the flowers to pieces, and examine "how curiously and wonderfully it is made." And yet there are many who pass a primrose by, to whom Wordsworth's lines are well applicable : "A primrose on the river's brim,

A yellow primrose is to him,
And it is nothing more."

At the roots of trees and in shady nooks is found that beautiful little white flower, the wood-anemone. Its leaves are very like those of the geranium, with a similar flower, though different in colour. Few, however, are found except in the beginning of "the season." Charlotte Smith correctly describes the localities it chooses:

"Thickly strewn in woodland bowers,
Anemones their stars unfold."

There is another pretty little flower that appears early, called the wood-sorrel, or by botanists oxalis acetosella. It grows on banks and about the roots of trees, and is about the size of a buttercup. Its colour is white; but the interior of the flower is streaked in the most delicate and lovely manner with parallel pink veins. This is a medicinal plant. The taste of its flowers and leaf is very acid. A salt is prepared from the whole plant, which takes ink-stains out of linen; and the leaves are often used as poultices. Waving its blue bells, whether there is a breeze or not, we catch here and there a glimpse of the hyacinth, very different-looking indeed from those we see at flower-shows; but still this is the hyacinth, and the bells nod, as much as to say, "Ah! I know what you're thinking about, -those hyacinths last shewn at Chelsea; but what of their beauty and size, am not I the type of the father and mother of them all?" Again, we find the little modest hare-bell waving on its hair-like stalk. Goethe has two beautiful stanzas about this pretty little flower:

"A little blue-bell

Peeped up from the ground,
And cast his blossoms

Of beauty around.

We must not overlook the wild

A little bee came

And he nestled therein; The two for each other

Were fashioned I ween." strawberry, though it is very

apt to be passed by unnoticed. It grows in almost all our woods, trailing along the ground just as it does in gardens.

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