274 BERTHA'S VISIT TO HER 



sporting about, and the pastures beginning to 

 shew the little cheerful daisy 



The lambkin crops its crimson gem, 

 The wild bee murmurs on its breast, 



The blue fly bends its pensile stem 

 Light o'er the skylark's nest. 



Grace repeated that pretty stanza of Mont- 

 gomery's ; and when I asked her if she knew 

 what was meant by "its crimson gem," she 

 replied, "Yes, Mamma told me that the buds 

 of trees are called gems, from the Latin word 

 gemma" My uncle added that here the term 

 is poetically applied to the flowers while yet 

 unclosed though it is only leaf-buds to which 

 botanists give that name. 



I begged of my uncle to shew me the dif- 

 ference between the oats and wheat ; for though 

 there is a great difference in their appearance 

 when in ear, yet I had not learned to distinguish 

 the young plants. 



My uncle pulled up a plant of each, and 

 shewed me that the oat shoots upwards, with 

 scarcely more than two leaves, which are much 

 rounder at the end than those of wheat ; but 

 that the plant of wheat produces three or four 

 pointed leaves, which, instead of being directed 

 upwards, are, at first, inclined to spread. After 

 my aunt had returned home, we walked into 



