ECONOMICAL USES OF VARIOUS PLANTS. 213 



Apple-trees, which bear heavy loads of fruit are short-lived 

 in comparison with the oak which perfects from each lh:»wer 

 but one of six seeds, and this fruit is but a small acorn. 

 Some trees exist which are supposed to be of great age ; in 

 the Island of Teneriffe is the DKACiENA draco^ which, according 

 to many circumstances, appears to have some thousand years 

 of age. In England, at Blenheim Park, it is said, may be seen- 

 trunks of trees which shaded the bower of fair Rosamond, 

 supposed to be not less than a thousand years old. At Hartford, 

 in Connecticut, is the Charter-oak, which was a hollow tree in 

 the days of James II., nearly two hundred years ago. In the 

 hollow of this tree was concealed the charter of the state, when 

 the king of England, through his agents, attempted to deprive 

 the colonists of that guarantee of their' civil rights. This oak 

 must, even at that period, have been an aged tree. 



325. Econoinical uses of various Plants. — We perceive among 

 the various species of vegetable beings, some which seem destined 

 only to heautify and enliven the earth ; others., with little or no 

 beauty, are valuable only for tlieir utility ^ and in some instances 

 we find utility and beauty united. Trees are not only beautiful, 

 but many of them are highly useful, affording fuel, shelter, and 

 shade, nuts, berries, and other fruits ; their bark is used in tan- 

 ning, for medicine, and spices ; and their sap, secretions, fruit, 

 and roots, furnish sugar and various medicinal extracts. Trees, 

 with respect to their wood, may be divided : 1st, into such as 

 have hard wood, as the oak, elm, apple, &c. : 2d, such as have 

 soft wood, as the j)oplar and willow : 3d, such as have resinous 

 wood, as the pine and fir : 4th, such as are evergreens but not 

 resinous, as the evergreen oak of the south of Europe. Hard 

 wood is considered best for fuel; as it contains the greatest 

 quantity of carbon it causes a more intense and permanent heat : 

 resinous wood containing more hydrogen, burns with a more 

 brilliant flame. 



326. The fermented juice of the grape produces wine. Grain 

 of difl:erent kinds produces gin, whisky, &c. Apples, by tlieir 

 fermentation produce cider ; this liquor, concentrated by dis- 

 tillation, produces brandy and alcohol. The vineyards of Italy 

 and France, and of some of the Atlantic islands, are the most 

 celebrated for their wine. In America, the vine does not flour- 

 ish in the same luxuriance as upon the eastern continent. 

 Grasses are the jyalms of cold climates; they are of the class of 

 monocotyledons, and have endogenous stems. Some are pe- 

 rennial, some annual, the meadow-grasses are of the former kind. 

 The grains, Indian corn, and rice, are annual. Gramineous 



Aged trees — Charter-oak. — 325. Some plants chiefly valuable for beauty, others for utility — rivision 

 of troes with respect to wood. — 326. Liquors produced from j)laat3 — Grasses, 



