324 ON THE CULTIVATION OF TREES. 



The barberry is well adapted for hedges, having three 

 thorns issuing from the same point. The Ilex is furnish- 

 ed with thorns at the extremity of its leaves. The Len- 

 tiscus (Pistachia Lentiscus,) and the Cockspur Hawthorn 

 (Crataegus crusgall,) are shrubs which admit of planting 

 in hedge-rows ; but their cultivation does not extend 

 further northward than the southern parts of Europe. 



Caroline. I begin to think we have been confined long 

 enough by these hedges ; and I am impatient to break 

 through them, to get into the orchard, and examine the 

 fruit-trees, which are of a much more interesting nature. 



Mrs. B. I was just going to direct your attention to 

 them. 



You will be surprised to hear that, of one hundred 

 and twenty families of fruit-trees, known in Europe, we 

 cultivate only seventeen ; and by far the greater part of 

 these have been brought from the other quarters of the 

 world. The apple and the pear, some few cherries, and 

 the raspberry and strawberry, are alone indigenous in 

 Europe. 



Caroline. Alas ! what a poor figure our quarter of the 

 globe makes in the vegetable kingdom ! 



Emily. We have the greater merit in having enriched 

 it with such a number of foreign plants. 



Mrs. B. True. These seventeen families give us 

 thirty-four genera, sixty-eight species, and, finally, about 

 two thousand varieties of fruit-trees : a number which is 

 multiplying every day, from the increased facility of inter- 

 course with foreign countries, and the improved mode of 

 conveying plants, united to the general progress of science. 



Caroline. From what countries do we derive our choic- 

 est fruit-trees ? 



Mrs. B. Chiefly from the East. Africa is but very 

 imperfectly cultivated ; and America, though so distin- 

 guished for its forest-trees, appears to be very scantily 

 supplied with fruit trees. The Opuntia, the Diospyros, 

 and a few others, are the only fruit-trees that hare been 

 brought to Europe from the northern parts of the New 

 World. 



1746. Of the barberry, the Ilex, theLentiscus.and the Cockspur Haw- 

 thorn 1 ? 1747. How many families of fruit trees are cultivated in Eu- 

 rope'? 1748. What ones alone in Europe are indigenous 1 ? 1749. 

 The seventeen families furnish how many Genera bow many species-r- 

 and how many varieties of fruitl 1750. What is said of Africa and 

 America as furnishing fruit trees for Europe 1 



