A CHAT ABOUT PLANTS. 129 



have so suddenly come from. It is not without its ludi- 

 crous side, to see even the ingenuity of men baffled by 

 these unconscious but faithful servants of nature. We are 

 told that the Dutch, with a kind of sublime political wis- 

 dom, destroy the plants that produce our nutmeg, for the 

 purpose of keeping up their monopoly, and high prices 

 into the bargain, by the limited amount of the annual 

 produce, which is entirely in their hands. With this view, 

 they used to cut down every tree of the kind in the 

 Molucca Islands, where it was originally indigenous, and 

 to punish, with the severest penalties, the mere posses- 

 sion of a nut. But it so happens that a little bird of 

 the same Moluccas, also, is fond of these nuts ; and as 

 the air cannot very well be guarded and watched, even 

 by Dutch ingenuity, he insists upon eating them, and car- 

 ries the seed to distant islands of the ocean, causing the 

 unfortunate Hollanders infinite trouble and annoyance. 



Seeds that have not learned to fly with their own 

 or other people's wings are taught to swim. Trees and 

 bushes which bear nuts, love low grounds and the banks 

 of rivers. Why ] Because their fruit is shaped like a 

 small boat, and the rivulet playing with its tiny ripples 

 over silvery sands, as well as the broad wave of the 

 Pacific, carry their seed alike, safely and swiftly, to new 

 homes. Rivers float down the fruits of mountain regions, 

 into deep valleys and to far off coasts, and the Gulf Stream 

 of our own Atlantic carries annually some of the rich 

 products of the torrid zone of America to the distant 

 shores of Iceland and Norway. Seeds of plants growing 

 in Jamaica and Cuba have been gathered in the quiet coves 

 6* 



