THE FARMER AT HOME. 357 



>een extensively diffused. The wars which led many of the European 

 lations to the Holy Land, brought back many of the esculent vegeta- 

 )les which are seen on our tables, and many of the flowers which 

 idorn our gardens. Commerce has enriched different nations by an 

 nterchange of their most valuable productions, and science has dis- 

 covered in the remotest sections of the earth, vegetables which are 

 aow diffused through countries where they were formerly unknown. 

 Buckwheat, and most kinds of grain, were received through Italy from 

 the eastern nations, while the various kinds of cultivated fruit were 

 derived from Greece, ultimately perhaps from the provinces of Asia. 

 Persia is the native country of the peach ; Arminia of the apricot ; 

 and from these nations they have travelled through Europe, and at 

 last reached this country. The potato was carried from America to 

 Ireland by Sir Walter Raleigh, and from thence it has found its way 

 to almost every section of the eastern continent. These are but a few 

 of the many examples which might be mentioned, to prove how much 

 man has contributed to the dissemination of seeds. The fertility of 

 the vegetable kingdom will warrant the conclusion, that its numerous 

 species have all been preserved in the midst of the dangers which 

 assailed them ; dangers, too, which they have no eyes to see, and no 

 voluntary power to avoid. 



SENSITIVE PLANT. A remarkable plant that shrinks at the 

 touch. Naturalists have not explained the cause of the collapsing of 

 the sensitive plant. The leaves meet and close in the night, or when 

 exposed to much cold in the day time, in the same manner as when 

 they are affected by external violence ; folding their upper surfaces 

 together, and in part over each other, like scales or tiles, so as to ex- 

 pose as little of the upper surface as may be to the air. Another 

 plant that seems to be endow r ed with a degree of sensation is the sun- 

 flower, which follows the course of the sun by nutation, not by twist- 

 ing its stem. 



SERPENTS. In none of the countries of Europe is the serpent 

 tribe sufficiently numerous to be truly terrible. The venomous ma- 

 lignity, also, that has been ascribed to European serpents of old, is 

 now utterly unknown ; there are not above three or four kinds that are 

 dangerous, and the poison of all operates in the same manner. 

 Though, however, Europe be happily delivered from these rep- 

 tiles, in the warm countries that lie within the tropics, as well as in 

 the cold regions of the north, where the inhabitants are few, the ser- 

 pents propagate in equal proportion. All along -the swampy banks of 

 the rivers Niger and Oroonoko, where the sun is hot, the forests thick, 

 and the men but few, the serpents cling among the branches of the 

 trees in infinite numbers, and carry on an unceasing war against all 

 other animals in their vicinity. Travellers have assured us, that they 

 have often seen large snakes twining- round the trunk of a tall tree, 

 encompassing it like a wreath, and thus rising and descending at plea- 



