230 PROSERPINA. 



There is this farther advantage in keeping the third 

 common term, that it leaves us the words Succus, Jus, 

 Juice, for other liquid products of plants, watery, milky, 

 sugary, or resinous, often indeed important to man, but 

 often also without either agreeable flavor or nutritious 

 power ; and it is therefore to be observed with care that 

 we may use the word ' juice, ' of a liquid produced by 

 any part of a plant, but ' nectar, ' only of the juices pro- 

 duced in its fruit. 



6. But the good and pleasure of fruit is not in the 

 juice only ; in some kinds, and those not the least val- 

 uable, (as the date,) it is not in the juice at all. We still 

 stand absolutely in want of a word to express the more 

 or less firm substance of fruit, as distinguished from all 

 other products of a plant. And with the usual ill-luck, 

 (I advisedly think of it as demoniacal misfortune) of 

 botanical science, no other name has been yet used for 

 such substance than the entirely false and ugly one of 

 ' Flesh,' Fr., ' Chair,' with its still more painful deri- 

 vation ' Charim, ' and in England the monstrous scien- 

 tific term, ' Sarco-carp.' 



But, under the housewifery of Proserpina, since we 

 are to call the juice of fruit, Nectar, its substance will 

 be as naturally and easily called Ambrosia ; and I have 

 no doubt that this, with the other names defined in this 

 chapter, will not only be found practically more con- 

 venient than the phrases in common use, but will more 

 securely fix in the student's mind a true conception of 



