OCR Text |
Show I . I - ~-- ... 320 l"W :FAlHlLY imports, in the manufact~re of p:;tper, and also o( a species of paper cloth. fhe baman-tree, or ~ndwn fig rrives habitation to numbers of the lac msect (cdcc~s lacca), which furnishes the. gum lac of commerce, and no doubt elaborates It out of the substance of the tree, in the same way that b~es elaborate wax out of the juices of many plants. fh_8 W?Od of the yellow mulbcrrr (:nor·us tinctoria~, whi~h IS a native of the West Indm Islands and of Braz1l, furnishes fustic, which is so well known as a yellow die: and there is little doubt that m_a~y others of tho family, especially the cratons, the Jmce of s~me of which is of the colour, and nearly the con.sistency of blood, would form both die-stuffs a;nd p1gm_ents. These particulars have been mentwned with a view to show how much information, and how I? any useful substances may be obtained fro~ a smgle family (and that one of which the properties are but slightly and imperfectly known),_ out of the many thousands of vegetable productiOns. But, apart from the applications to th~ purposes of art, .there is a great deal of instructiOn and pleasure m the mere watching of the progress of the veget_able; and they who cultivate vegetables, and f~el mterested in so doing, have really more pleasure Ill: the growth of the crop, whatever it may b~, than m the profit which it brings when they carry 1t t? the_ market. It is impossible to see a farmer surveymg his field~, or a gardener his fruits, flowers, an~ ~egetable.s, without being convmced of that; and 1~ IS no_t very easy. to ,,iew such a character so occupwd, without envymg him his occupation. Yet why should we do the latter 1 In as far as knowing i~ is concern~d, ~n! one of the kingdoms of nature IS everr man s_kmgdom, and may be any man's kingdom 1.f he will bnt come and conquer it. The conquest IS a co!1qu~~t without labour too for we have only to wmt With patience, and r~otic~ with attention, and nature does all t 'l)e rest. 1110SSES AND LICHENS. 321 We have no need for pausing times either-of waiting till nature is worthy of our notice in her vegetable productions. The winter is a time of repose to many of the plants; but it is the time during which others are in the greatest activity. The for~ ests are leafless, and the fields are bare ; most of the plants that people the waters in the warm season are down in the mud at the bottom, and altogether lost to the eye, and the few vegetables which remain are faint in their colours and feeble in their odours. But still, the winter mosses, and many of the lichens, to which cold is more congenial than heat, and which are brittle and crumbling during the hot season, are in the prime of their vigour in winter; and, perhaps, by their agency the very first steps in the progress of fertility are accomplished. If there is but a rock, or any thing except loose and dry sand, and moisture, and a temperature the least shade above freezing, there is certain to be a moss or a lichen of some description or other; and however untoward the circumstances are, that lichen or moss will keep growing until it forms something like a vegetable mould~ in which other plants will in time take root. Those mossy coverings which spread and thicken upon the surface in cold places and cold weather protect the naked parts of the earth from the severe action of the cold; and answer, in places where the snow does not lie, nearly the same purpose that the snow answers where it does. In some respectf,, indeed, they answer more important purposes. They are most abundant in humid places where the snow does not continue, though it occasionally falls; and there they protect the earth against the alternate action of the rains and the frosts. If the earth were bare, the frost which is of much service to the vegetation of the coming season, by breaking down the clods that have been indurated by the drought of summer, would, in the course of one variable winter render the whole so soft that the rains would wash |