\QQ ON THE WAX TREE OF LOUISIANA. 



fold the garden, but the wax tree ftill remained. It was 

 planted in 1770. Since the poflibility of naturalizing the 

 mj/rica cerifera has been afcertained in the north, why fhould 

 we neglett a vegetable of fuch value and importance which 

 could not fail to profper in our fouthern departments, and de- 

 mands much lefs care than our bee-hives. The fuccefsful ex- 

 periments already made ought to excite the zeal of our culti- 

 vators. 

 Economical The government has already encouraged this branch of in- 



Remarks. duftry, by ordering plantations to be made. There exifts at 



Orleans and at Rambouillet, two orchards of the wax tree 

 which contain more than four hundred ihrubs. We cannot 

 give too much publicity to fuch fatisfa6tory refults. Nothing 

 is propagated with fo much flownefs as ufeful plants. A 

 barren but picturefque tree, or an agreeable flower are foon 

 adopted by the fafhion. They ornament the gardens of our 

 modern Lucullufes, and the toilets of our Phrynes, while our 

 indefatigable agriculturifts make vain efforts to enrich our 

 gardens with a new gramineous plant, or to till our barns with 

 nourifhing cereal plants. The people has long rejected from 

 prejudice both maize and the potatoe which have been fo 

 highly ferviceable to the poor and to our foldiery. We no 

 longer find in our forefls the food bearing oak, upon which our 

 anceflors fubfifted. Let us hope that our cultivators will at 

 laft open their eyes upon their true interefts, and that lefs 

 enflaved by old practices they will not defpife the prefents 

 which learned focieties are defirous of making for their profit, 

 and the reputation and profperity of their country. 



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