THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM, 



QUANTITY, DISTKIBTJTION, AND OFFICES OF THE 

 YEGETABLE. 



IN contemplating nature there are few things which give 

 more delight than the beauty and variety of the vegetation 

 which clothes the surface of the earth, whether it be that 

 we contemplate the grassy covering of the plains of the Old 

 "World, or the immense " prairies " of the New, spreading out 

 as it were into seas of grass, and giving food and shelter 

 to thousands of wild animals ; or gaze upon the rocky 

 height of some vast mountain range, and see the gigantic 

 oak or pine, forming by their wide-spread shades the 

 solemn forest which extends for miles beneath us, and 



