346 HISTORY OF FRUITS. 



chance : Dr. Gibbons, an eminent physician, was build- 

 ing a house in King-street, Covent Garden. His brother, 

 who was a West India captain, brought over some planks 

 of this wood as ballast, which he thought might be of 

 service in the Doctor's building ; but the carpenters find- 

 ing the wood too hard for their tools, it was laid aside as 

 useless. Soon after, Mrs. Gibbons wanting a candle-box, the 

 Doctor called on his cabinet-maker (Wollaston, in Long 

 Acre) to make him orie of some wood that lay in his 

 garden. Wollaston also complained that it was too hard; 

 but the Doctor insisted on having it done; and, when 

 finished, it was so much liked, that the Doctor ordered a 

 bureau to be made of the same wood, which was accord- 

 ingly done; and the fine colour, polish, &c. were so 

 pleasing, that he invited all his friends to see it. Among 

 them was the Duchess of Buckingham. Her Grace begged 

 some of the same wood of Dr. Gibbons, and employed 

 Wollaston to make her a bureau also. On this the fame 

 of mahogony and Mr. Wollaston was much raised ; and 

 furniture made of this wood became general. 



The timber of the walnut-tree is much esteemed by 

 coach-builders, and also for making gun-stocks. 



The late long war, which has caused such revolutions in 

 the customs and manners of the English people, has also 

 nearly thinned the country of walnut-trees, the great sums 

 given by the gun and pistol-stock makers for this timber 

 being an inducement to fell them, and the high price of 

 all agricultural productions acting at the same time against 

 replanting ; but surely, while we were reaping so amply 

 the fruits of our fathers' cultivation, we ought in justice 

 to have planted for our children. 



In the plains of Naples it is customary for a peasant, 

 on the birth of a daughter, to plant a row of poplar-trees, 

 which are cut down and sold at the end of seventeen 

 years, to make up a fortune for her. Were the English 



