

312 THE REASON WHY. 



' I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman." Jonw xv. 



1231. Clove (Myrtus caryophyllus) , an evergreen small tree, the dried flower- 

 buds of which form the celebrated aromatic, grows naturally in the Moluccas, 

 whence it has been conveyed to other tropical districts. The island ot 

 Amboyna, one of that group, is the principal seat of its cultivation. The lowest 

 temperature there is 72 degs. ; the mean temperature of the year 82 degs. 



1232. Nutmeg (Myrstica moschata} grows naturally in several islands of the 

 eastern archipelago, but is principally cultivated in the Banda Isles. 



Tropical families and forms successively vanish with an increase of distance 

 from the equator, and new phases of vegetation mark the transition from hot to 

 temperate climates. Vivirlly green meadows, abounding with tender herbs, 

 replace the tall rigid grasses which form the impenetrable jungle; and instead 

 of forests composed of towering evergreen trees, woods of the deciduous class 

 appear, which cast their leaves in winter, and hybernate in the colder season, 

 the oak, ash, elm, maple, beech, lime, alder, birch, and sycamore. The cultiva- 

 tion of tho vine becomes characteristic, with the perfection of the cereal 

 grasses, and a larger proportion of herbaceous annuals and cryptogamic plants. 



1233. The vine (Vitis viniferaj is less impatient of a cold winter than a cool 

 summer. Hence its northern limit, which coincides with lat. 47 deg. 30 min. on 

 the west coast of France, rises in the interior, where, though the winters are 

 colder, the summers are warmer, to lat. 49 degs., cuts the Rhine at Coblentz in 

 lat. 50 deg. 20 min., and ascends to 52 deg. 31 min. in Germany. 



1234. Receding further from the equator, magnificent forests of the fir and 

 pine tribe prevail, as in the central parts of Russia, on the southern shores of 

 the Baltic, in Scandinavia, and North America. But some of the cereals are no 

 longer cultivatable, and several timber-trees common to the temperate zone do 

 not reach its northern limits. Gradually all ligneous vegetation disappears 

 entirely as higher latitudes are approached, the woods having first dwindled to 

 mere dwarfs in struggling with the elements, hosti e to that state which nature 

 destined them to assume. The limit of the forests is a sinuous line running 

 along the extreme north of the old world ; and extending from Hudson's Bay, 

 lat. 60 deg., to the Mackenzie River, lat. 63 deg., and thence to Behring's Strait. 

 The dwarf birch (Betula nana), a mere bush, is the last tree found on drawing 

 near the eternal snow of the pole. At th ) island of Hammerfest, lat. 70 deg. 

 40 min., near the North Cape, it rises to about the height of a man, in sheltered 

 hollows between the mountains, its lower branches trailing on the ground, 

 affording a shelter to the ptarmigan. In the polar zone, some low flowering 

 annuals, saxifrages, ranunculi, gentians, chickweeds, and others, flourish 

 during the brief ardent summer; a few perennials also accommodate them- 

 selves to the rigorous climate by spreading laterally, never rising higher than 

 four or five indhes from the ground ; till finally no development of vegetable life 

 is met with, but lichens, and the microscopic forms that colour the snow. 



1235. In Europe, wheat ceases with a line connecting Inverness in Scotland, 

 lat. 58 de?., Drontheim in Norway, lat. 64 deg., and Petersburgh in Russia lat. 

 60 deg. 15 min. Oats reach a somewhat higher latitude. Barley and rye ascend 

 to lat. 70 deg., but require a favourable aspect and season to produce a crop. 



1236. The northern limit of the growth of oak, lat. 61 deg., falls short of that 

 of wheat. The oak makes a singular leap at the confines of Europe and Asia, 

 disappearing towards the Ural mountains. This is the casea !so with the wild- 

 nut and apple. The oak and the wild- nut, however, re-appear iuddenly in 



