The Pyracantha^ or evergreen-thorn, 45 



or twenty times the length of the origmal ; and this 

 by the mere play-work of children. This, when taken 

 into the estimate along with its exuberant production 

 of seed, renders the increase of its prolific powers so 

 rapid, as almost to exceed belief, to stagger credulity, 

 and outstrip the celerity of our wishes. These are not 

 the visionary prospections of an infatuated theorist, 

 pursuing the shadows of imagination, but the deduc- 

 tions of practical veracity. 



Disastrous events sometimes lead to far off and fu- 

 ture benefits. It is now thirty five years, when, being 

 at sea, and forced to. land at the back of the British 

 • Isle of Wight, in travelling across the country, I, for 

 the first time, saw the Pyracantha ; it was a single 

 plant, trained upon the gable end of a brick building, 

 and neatly spread upon the wall ; it exhibited at that 

 season, being the month of October, a drapery of dark 

 green foliage, profusely interspersed with large clus- 

 ters of scarlet coloured fruit. I never saw a Pyracan- 

 tha again until the year 1796, when being employed in 

 collecting different kinds of plants to bring over here, 

 I happened to see two or three of the Pyracantha in 

 training to cover a t(;ol house, in a garden in Scotland. 

 These had no fruit upon them, but the beauty of the 

 one I had formerly seen in the Isle of Wight, instantly 

 recurring to my remembrance, I resolved to bring 

 some sets along with me ; these, from the length of 

 the voyage, all perished by the way ; but sending for 

 a new assortment the next year, I received two phmts 

 of the Pyracantha in tolerable preservation, tliough it 

 was late in June when they arrived, and the whole 

 package much abused, and contentiously detained by 



