186 KEW GARDENS 



might spend many days in enlarging their 

 mental prospects. The cane, for instance, chiefly 

 familiar to them on the seat of chairs, or perhaps 

 by a use that renders sitting a property of 

 uneasiness, they will learn from Mr. Barlow to 

 belong to a great race of arborescent grasses, 

 among which the young gentlemen may perhaps 

 be most interested in the raw and manufactured 

 products of the sugar-cane. Here their well- 

 instructed tutor can point out to them how the 

 bamboo, prince of this race, is beneficent to 

 many peoples, supplying them with paper, ropes, 

 hats, weapons, fans, baskets, umbrellas, tents, 

 mats, boxes, also houses, bridges, masts, sails, 

 ladders, fences, flutes, and other tools, weapons 

 and utensils, amply illustrated in the cases of 

 Museums II. and III. 



Off the Rhododendron Walk there is a garden 

 of feathery bamboos that can make shift to stand 

 our open air. In the same quarter, a division 

 labelled Betula is also calculated to throw a 

 shade over the spirit of Master Merton, if not 

 of the blameless Harry Sandford, this in the 

 vernacular being a tree of knowledge too well 

 known to British youngsters of past generations 

 for its base use, frowned on by latter day 



