MASTWORTS. 101 



berry,* while the other has the remarkable growth 

 which you have seen represented in the pitcher- 

 plan t.^ We now rise to a higher group, and you 

 need only look round this room to see specimens 

 of the most important member of it." 



The children did not see at first what their 

 father meant, but Henry soon recollected that the 

 old carved oak, of which the bookcases were made, 

 must be the specimen. 



" You mean the good old English oak, papa," 

 said he. " The wooden walls of old England are 

 made of it, so we ought always to admire the oak." 

 Henry here had to explain to his brother and 

 sister, that by wooden walls he meant the ships 

 which protect our island ; and his father told him 

 that although the oak is chiefly employed in ship- 

 building, and is called the ' shipwright's treasure,' 

 yet other timber is also used, especially teak, a 

 fine timber which abounds in the East Indies. 



Mary said that she remembered several other 

 uses of the oak, besides ship-building. " The gall- 

 nuts are used in making ink, the bark for tanning 

 leather, and the saw-dust for dyeing, besides the 

 acorns being used for feeding pigs." 



* Empetrum nigrum. f Nepenthes distillatoria. 



