52 BOX. BOTANICAL KNOWLEDGE. 



green, and grows more slowly than almost any of 

 our trees, which renders its wood particularly hard, 

 and of a fine close texture, and therefore very valu- 

 able for musical and mathematical instruments, and 

 for the finer kinds of turner's ware, which require 

 wood of a smooth grain. The beautiful figures 

 of animals and birds, by Bewick, are cut upon box- 

 wood. The hardest wood is always of slowest 

 growth, as in the oak and holly ; and the softest 

 grows- the most rapidly, as the horse-chesnut and 

 ash. 



You have seen only small trees of Box, but it 

 grows to the height of ten or twelve feet, at Box- 

 hill, in Surrey ; and at Bodenham, in Hereford- 

 shire, there is one tree more than twenty feet high. 



EDWARD. 

 Will our borders ever be so tall ? 



MOTHER. 



No : what is used for garden-borders is a dwarf, 

 or a very small variety, but not a different spe- 

 cies of Box. It never grows to a great height. 



EDWARD. 



How many curious things you know about 

 plants, mamma ! How did you find them out ? 



MOTHER. 

 By reading different botanical works, and books 



