PART II. 

 FRUITS. 



CHAPTER I. 



Introduction. Fruits of the Temperate Climates. Fleshy Fruits. Apple ; 

 Pear ; Quince ; Ornamental Crabs ; Medlar. 



WHETHER we regard their beauty, their variety, the 

 extent over which they are diffused, or their agree- 

 ableness and value to man, there is no class of sub- 

 stances more interesting than the Fruits. Their 

 progressive cultivation, and their removal, by wan- 

 dering tribes or conquerors, from region to region, 

 associate them in a very remarkable degree with the 

 history of the human race. This historical connexion 

 of fruits with the progress of civilization is sometimes 

 fabulous, and generally obscure ; but the great revo- 

 lutions of society may be traced in their gradual 

 distribution over the surface of the globe : for where- 

 ever man has penetrated, in that spirit of change and 

 activity which precedes or accompanies civilization, 

 he has assisted the dissemination of vegetable produc- 

 tions much more surely and rapidly than the birds 

 which bear their seeds from land to land, than the 

 currents of the ocean, or even the winds. 



If we examine, for example, the fruits of our own 



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