52 N. H. STATE AGRICULTUEAL SOCIETY. 



attacks the tree, and after a longer or shorter struggle it 

 yields to the common law, and* at last falls a prey to the 

 chemical action of the elements that war upon it. But like 

 those reptiles which have no fixed limit of bulk or period 

 of life, the willow and the olive continue to grow indefi- 

 nitely, even after the heart is decayed, annually renewing 

 their bark and sap-wood, and putting forth fresh shoots as 

 long as there is stem enough to sustain the weight of the 

 branches ; and when, at last, the trunk falls, sending up 

 new sprouts and forming new trees upon the roots of the 

 old. There arc olive trees in the south of France and in 

 Italy known to have continued some hundreds of years in 

 full bearing; and the monks of Palestine declare that the 

 olives now standing in what, with more probability than 

 belongs to most monkish legends, they identify as the gar- 

 den of Gethsemane, are the self-same trees that witnessed 

 the agony of our Lord. Extravagant as this may seem, it 

 is not wholly devoid of credibility. Historical documents 

 prove that these particular trees were in bearing ten cen- 

 turies since, and it is not difficult to believe that they are, 

 if not the identical trunks which stood in the garden at 

 the commencement of our era, at least shoots from roots 

 as old. 



On reaching the shores of the Mediterranean, the orange, 

 the fairest of Pomona's cifts, is seen thriving luxuriantly 

 in the open air, and the fragrant flower, tlie small green 

 globe, and the full golden fruit, are found at once in the 

 same garden, and not unfrequently on the same stem. The 

 oranges of France are much inferior in both quality and 

 quantity to those of more southern climes, and to see the 

 tree in its full beauty and enjoy the highest perfection of 

 its fruit, you must visit the extreme southern insular or 

 peninsular points of Europe, on the eastern shores of the 

 Mediterranean. The variety of fruits of this family, which 

 the Italians comprise under the general name of agrumi, 

 including the orange, the lemon, the lime, the shaddock; 



