114 FOREST CULTURE AND 
foresight, may it be utilized and rendered lucrative 
tod industry! The Water Nuts,* naturally distributed 
through large tracts of Europe and Asia, afford at 
Cashmere alone, for five months in the year, a nutri- 
tious and palatable article of food for thirty thousand 
people. Can the Menyanthes not be made a native 
here—one of the loveliest of water-plants, one of the 
best of tonics ? The true Bamboo, which I first prov- 
ed hardy here, used for no end of purposes by the 
ingenious Chinese—can we not plant it here at each 
dwelling, at each stream, a grateful yielder to indus- 
trial wants, not requiring itself any care—an object 
destined to embellish whole landscapes? An Arun- 
dinaria Bamboo from Nepal (A. falcata) proved very 
tall and quite hardy, even in Britain; and yet taller 
is the Mississippi Arundinaria (A. macrosperma) — 
indeed, rivaling in height the gigantic Chinese or 
Indian Bamboo. 
Imagine how there might arise on the bold rocky 
declivities of the Grampians the colossal columns 
of the Cereus giganteus of the extra-tropic Colorado 
regions — huge candelabras of vegetable structure, 
which would pierce the roof of our museum hall if 
planted on the floor, and would be as expansive in 
width as the pedestal of the monument consecrated 
to our unfortunate explorers. Picture to yourselves 
an Echinocactus Visnago of New Mexico, lodged in 
the wide chasm of our Pyrenees, one of these mon- 
sters weighing a ton, and expanding into a length of 
nine feet, with a diameter of three feet.- Think of 
such plants mingled with the Canarian Dragon-tree, 
one of which is supposed to have lived from our 
* Several species of Trapa. 
« 
