106 FOREST CULTURE AND 
umes, can readily be attached and rendered explana- 
tory of such collections. A prize held out by the 
patrons of any school might stimulate the juvenile 
gatherer of plants to increased exertions ; his youth- 
ful mind will be trained to observation and reflection 
and the faculties of a loftier understanding will be 
raised. 
To the adult also, and particularly often to the 
invalid, new sources of enjoyment may thus be dis- 
closed. What formerly was passed by unregarded 
will have a meaning; every blade over which he 
stepped thoughtlessly before will have a new inter- 
est; and even what he might have admired will gain 
additional charm ; but while penetrating wonders he 
never dreampt of before he ought piously to ask who 
called them forth ? 
‘Bright flowers shall bloom wherever we roam, 
A voice Divine shall talk in each stream ; 
The stars shall look like worlds of love, 
And this earth shall be one beautiful dream.’’ 
Thos. Moore's Irish Melodies. 
What one single plant may do for the human race 
is perhaps best exemplified by the Cotton-plant. The 
Southern States of North America sent to England in 
1860 nearly half a million tons of cotton (453,522 tons), 
by which means, in Britain alone, employment was 
given to about a million of people engaged in indus- 
tries of this fabric, producing cotton goods to the 
value of £121,364,458. From rice, which like cotton 
will mature its crop in some of the warmer parts of 
Victoria,* sustenance is obtained for a greater num- 
ber of human beings than from any other plant. In 
* Particularly if the hardy mountain rice of China and Japan is chosen, 
which required no irrigation. The ordinary rice has been grown ap far 
north as Lombardy, 
