  Because they everywhere form the food of the animal creation. Without them, neither man nor beast could exist. Even the flesh-eating animals are sustained by them, since they live by preying upon the bodies of vegetable-eaters. They also enrich and beautify the earth. They present the most charming diversities of proportions and features. From the cowslip, the primrose, and the blue-bell of our childish days, to the broad oak under which we recline, while children gambol round us, they are all beautiful or sublime, and eminently useful in countless ways to man. They spread a carpet over the surface of the earth; they cling to old ruins, and cover hard rocks, as though they would hide decay, and They supply our dwellings with furniture of every kind, from the plain deal table, to the handsome cabinet of satin or rose-wood; they afford rich perfumes to the toilette, and luscious fruits and wines to the desert; they charm the eye of the child in the daisied field; they adorn the brow of the bride; they are laid in the coffin with the dead; and, as the cypress or the willow bend over our graves, they become the emblems of our grief. "The glory of the Lord shall endure for ever: the Lord shall rejoice in his works."—Psalm civ. Mahogany is the wood of trees brought chiefly from South America and Spain. The finest kind is imported from St. Domingo, and an inferior kind from Honduras. We all know the beauty of mahogany wood. But we do not all know that mahogany was first employed in the repair of some of Sir Walter Raleigh's ships at Trinidad in 1597. The discovery of the beauty of its grain for furniture and cabinet work was accidental. Dr. Gibbons, a physician of eminence, was building a house in King-street, Covent-garden; his brother, captain of a West Indiaman, had brought over some planks of mahogany as ballast, and he thought that the wood might be used up in his brother's building, but the carpenters found the wood too hard for their tools, and objected to use it. Mrs. Gibbons shortly afterwards wanted a small box made, so the doctor called upon his cabinet-maker, and ordered him to make a box out of some wood that lay in his garden. The cabinet-maker also complained that the wood was too hard. But the doctor insisted upon its being used, as he wished to preserve it as a memento of his brother. When the box was completed, its fine colour and polish attracted much attention; and he, therefore, ordered a bureau to be made of it. This was done, and it presented so fine an appearance that the cabinet-maker invited numerous persons to see it, before it was sent home. Among the visitors was her Grace the Duchess of Buckingham, who immediately begged some of the wood from Mr. Gibbons, and employed the cabinet-maker to make her a bureau also. Mahogany from this time became a fashionable wood, and the cabinet-maker, who at first objected to use it, made a great success by its introduction. Rosewood is the wood of a tree which grows in Brazil. It is, generally speaking, too dark for large articles of furniture, but is admirably adapted for smaller ones. It is expensive, and the hardness of the wood renders the cost of making articles of it very high. "I am come up to the height of the mountains, to the sides of Lebanon, and will cut down the tall cedars thereof, and the choice fir trees thereof."—II. Kings xxiii. Respecting the other woods used in the manufacture of furniture, we have nothing special to say, except of the oak—the emblem of our native land. This tree yields a most useful and durable wood, and as it not only defends our country by supplying our "wooden walls," but gives to us the floors of our houses, furnishes our good substantial tables, and comfortable arm-chairs, it will be well for us to know a few facts about this celebrated tree. It is said that there are no less than one hundred and fifty species of the oak. The importance of the growth of oaks may be gathered from the fact, that the building of a 70-gun ship would take forty acres of timber. The building of a 70-gun ship is estimated to cost about £70,000. Oak trees attain to the age of 1,000 years. The oak enlarges its circumference from 10½ inches to 12 inches in a year. The interior of a great oak at Allonville, in Normandy, has been converted into a place of worship. An oak at Kiddington, served as a village prison. A large oak at Salcey, was used as a cattle fold; and others have served as tanks, tombs, prisons, and dwelling-houses. The Mammoth tree, which is exhibiting at the Crystal Palace, is one of the great wonders of the vegetable creation. It is the grand monarch of the Californian forest, inhabiting a solitary district on the elevated slopes of the Sierra Nevada, at 5,000 feet above the sea-level. From 80 to 90 trees exist, all within the circuit of a mile, and these varying from 250 to 320 feet in height, and from 10 to 20 feet in diameter. The bark is from 12 to 15 inches in thickness; the branchlets are somewhat pendent, and resemble those of cypress or juniper, and it has the cones of a pine. Of a tree felled in 1853, 21 feet of the bark from the lower part of the trunk were put in the natural form as a room, which would contain a piano, with seats for forty persons; and on one occasion 150 children were admitted. The tree is reputed to have been above 3,000 years old; that is to say, it must have been a little plant when Samson was slaying the Philistines. The portion of the tree exhibiting at the palace is 103 feet in height, and 32 feet in diameter at the base. Tea is the leaf of a shrub (Thea Chinensis). The plant usually grows to the height of from three to six feet, and resembles in appearance the well-known myrtle. It bears a blossom not unlike that of the common dog-rose. The climate most congenial to it is that between the 25th and 33rd degrees of latitude. The growth of good tea prevails chiefly in China, and is confined to a few provinces. The green and black teas are mere varieties, depending upon the culture, time of gathering, mode of drying, &c. Coffee was used in this country before tea. in 1664, it is recorded, the East India Company bought 2lb. 2oz. of coffee as a present for the king. In the year 1832, there were 101,687 licensed tea dealers in the United Kingdom. Green tea was first used in 1715. A dispute with America about the duty upon tea led to the American war, out of which arose American independence. The consumption of tea "Every man should eat and drink, and enjoy the good of all his labour, it is the gift of God."—Ecclesiastes iii. Coffee is the berry of the coffee plant, which was a native of that part of Arabia called Yemen, but it is now extensively cultivated in India, Java, the West Indies, Brazil, &c. (See 1224). The first coffee-house in London was opened in 1652, under the following circumstances. A Turkey merchant named Edwards, having brought along with him from the Levant, some bags of coffee, and a Greek servant who was skilful in making it, his house was thronged with visitors to see and taste this new beverage. Being desirous to gratify his friends without putting himself to inconvenience, he allowed his servant to open a coffee-house, and to sell coffee publicly. Here we have another illustration of the great results springing from trifling causes. Coffee soon became so extensively used that taxes were imposed upon it. In 1660 a duty of 4d. a gallon was imposed upon all coffee made and sold. Before 1732 the duty upon coffee was 2s. a pound; it was afterwards reduced to 1s. 6d., at which it yielded to the revenue, for many years, £10,000 per annum. The duty has been gradually reduced, and the consumption has gone on increasing, until at last above 25,000,000 of pounds are consumed annually! Fancy this great result springing from a "friendly coffee party" that assembled in the year 1652. It is a cake prepared from the cocoa-nut. The nut is first roasted like coffee, then it is reduced to powder and mixed with water, the paste is then put into moulds and hardened. The properties are very healthful, but its consumption is very insignificant, as compared with tea or coffee. The cocoa tree grows chiefly in the West Indies and South America. Cocoa is also a preparation from the seeds or beans of the cocoa tree. But the best form of cocoa for family use is to obtain the beans pure, as they are now commonly sold ready for use, and to break them and then grind them in a large coffee mill. Chicory is the root of the common endive, dried and roasted as coffee, for which it is used as a substitute. Some persons prefer the flavour of chicory admixed with coffee. But very opposite "He that tilleth the land shall have plenty of bread: but he that followeth after vain persons shall have poverty enough."—Proverbs xxviii. Sugar is a sweet granulated substance, which may be derived from many vegetable substances, but the chief source of which is the sugar cane. The other chief sources that supply it are the maple, beet-root, birch, parsnip, &c. It is extensively used all over the world. Sugar is supposed to have been known to the ancient Jews. It was found in the East Indies by Newcheus, Admiral of Alexander, 325 B.C. It was brought into Europe from Asia. The art of sugar refining was first practised in England, in 1659, and sugar was first taxed by name by James II., 1685. Sugar is derived from the West Indies, Brazil, Surinam, Java, Mauritius, Bengal, Siam, the Isle de Bourbon, &c. &c. Before the introduction of sugar to this country, honey was the chief substance employed in making sweet dishes; and long after the introduction of sugar it was used only in the houses of the rich. The consumption in England in 1700 reached only 10,000 tons; in 1834 it had reached 180,000 tons. The English took possession of the West Indies in 1672, and in 1646 began to export sugar. In 1676 it is recorded that 400 vessels, averaging 150 tons, were employed in the sugar trade of Barbadoes. Jamaica was discovered by Columbus, and was occupied by the Spaniards, from whom it was taken by Cromwell, in 1656, and has since continued in our own possession. When it was conquered there were only three sugar plantations upon it. But they rapidly increased. Until the abolition of slavery in the West Indies, the production of sugar was almost exclusively limited to slave labour. (See 1226). Wheat, rye, barley, oats, millet, and maize, all belong to the natural order of grain-bearing plants. They all grow in a similar manner, and all yield starch, gluten, and a certain amount of phosphates. They are commonly spoken of as farinaceous foods. "I clothed thee also with broidered work, and shod thee with badgers' skin, and I girded thee about with fine linen, and I covered thee with silk."—Ezekiel xvi. From the Sacred writings we learn that unleavened bread was common in the days of Abraham. In the earlier periods of our own history, people had no other method of making bread than by roasting corn, and beating it in mortars, then wetting it into a kind of coarse cake. In 1596, rye bread and oatmeal formed a considerable part of the diet of servants, even in great families. In the time of Charles the First, barley bread was the chief food of the people. In many parts of England it was more the custom to make bread at home than at present. In 1804, there was not a single public baker in Manchester. In France, when the use of yeast was first introduced, it was deemed by the faculty of medicine to be so injurious to health that its use was prohibited under the severest penalties. Cotton is a species of vegetable wool, produced by the cotton shrub, called, botanically, Gossypium herbaceum, of which there are numerous varieties. It grows naturally in Asia, Africa, and America, and is cultivated largely for purposes of commerce. The precise time when the cotton manufacture was introduced into England is unknown; but probably it was not before the 17th century. Since then, what wonderful advances have been made! The cotton trade and manufacture have become a vast source of British industry, and of commerce between nations. It was some years ago calculated that the cotton manufacture yielded to Great Britain one thousand millions sterling. The names of Hargreaves, Arkwright, Crompton, Cartwright, and others, have become immortalised by their inventions for the improvement of the manufacture of cotton fabrics. Little more than half a century has passed since the British cotton manufactory was in its infancy—now it engages many millions of capital—keeps millions of work people employed; freights thousands of ships that are ever crossing and re-crossing the seas; and binds nations together in ties of mutual interest. The present yearly value of cotton manufactures in Great Britain is estimated at £34,000,000. About £6,044,000 of the above sum is distributed yearly among working people as wages. Silk, though not directly a vegetable product, is, nevertheless, indirectly derived from the vegetable creation, since it is a thread spun by the silk-worm from matter which the worm derives from the mulberry leaf. "And there was a man in Maon, whose possessions were in Carmel; and the man was very great, and he had three thousand sheep, and a thousand goats: and he was shearing his sheep in Carmel."—I Samuel xxv. Silk is supplied by various parts of the world, including China, the East Wool is a kind of soft hair or coarse down, produced by various animals, but chiefly by sheep. This is another of the useful productions of nature, for which we are indirectly indebted to the vegetable kingdom; for were it not for the rich pastures forming the green carpet of the earth, it would be impossible for man to keep large flocks of sheep for the production of wool. Wool, like the hair of most animals, completes its growth in a year, and then exhibits a tendency to fall off. For the production of wool in England and Wales it has been estimated that there are no less than 27,000,000 sheep and lambs; and, in Great Britain and Ireland, the total number is estimated at 82,000,000. Wool was not manufactured in any quantity in England until 1331, when the weaving of it was introduced by John Kempe and other artizans from Flanders. The exportation or non-exportation of wool has from time to time formed a vexed subject for legislators. Woollen clothes were made an article of commerce in the reign of Julius CÆsar. They were made in England prior to 1200. Blankets were first made in England in 1340. The art of dyeing wools was first introduced into England in 1608. The annual value of the raw material in wool is set down at £6,000,000; the wages of workmen engaged in the wool trade, £9,600,000. The number of people employed is said to be 500,000. Starch is one of the most useful products of the vegetable kingdom. As a rule, a vegetable, if nutritious at all, is so It is also met with in the cellular tissues of plants, and especially in such underground stems as the potatoe, carrot, turnip, &c., and the stems of the sago-palm fig, &c. It is also found in the bark of some trees. "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning."—James i. Because (like many other vegetable productions) it contains with the starch an acrid juice, which renders it unhealthy; and although the juice can be separated from the starch, the process is too expensive to be made generally available. The starch which is used for domestic purposes is an artificial preparation, and does not properly represent the starch of nutrition. A better idea of it is afforded by the meal of a flowery potatoe. The starch used by laundresses is frequently prepared from diseased potatoes. This does not impair the quality of the starch, for the purposes of the laundress, and the reason why potatoes that are diseased are thus applied is, that it is one method of saving some part of their value. The finest kinds of starch are prepared from rice. It is prepared by breaking the pulp, and disengaging the starch from the cells; and it is then put through other processes to remove the fragments of the broken cells. But in the flowery meal of the potatoe, the starch cell may be seen entire. |
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