982 Essays. 
tages from the extensive cultivation of certain plants which cannot be 
successfully cultivated in the open air in Great Britain, some of which have 
been already naturalized in this island, such as the vine, the mulberry, the 
castor-oil plant (Ricinus communis), the olive (Olea europea), the cochineal 
cactus (Opuntia sp.), the tobacco, and the maize, the last both for the sake 
of its spathes and leaves for paper-making (for which it seems admirably 
adapted), as well as for its grain. The northern parts of this island, 
especially the warm climate and rich volcanic soils north of the Thames, 
will doubtless produce wine and oil in abundance, and perhaps silk, as the 
climate is well known to be suited to the mulberry, and the European olive 
might be advantageously grafted upon the several indigenous olives of the 
island. Further, it is not improbable that cochineal, cinchona, and coffee 
may also be successfully cultivated in the warm climate of the northern 
districts, seeing these two last-mentioned plants have very near botanical 
relations in the many species of the genus Coprosma, everywhere common 
and flourishing amongst us. Those parts of the island possessing limestone 
soils, and, at the same time, not below the necessary isotherm, seem admir- 
ably adapted for raising tobacco, a plant which, like Glover and lucerne, 
requires a deal of lime in the soil to bring it to perfection, its ashes 
containing more than 20 per cent. of lime and magnesia salts; while the 
more equable and temperate climate .and rich alluvial soils of the southern 
parts of the island will also continue to produce and export, as heretofore, all 
British grain and fruits and edible roots very abundantly :— 
“ Hic segetes, illie veniunt felicius uve ; 
Arborei fetus alibi, atque injussa virescunt 
ramina."— —Vire. Georg. l. i. 
- 
A Comparative TABLE OF WEIGHT AND SPECIFIC Gravyrry. 
Name of Wood. M per ay. | Remarks, 
Ib. * oz. 
English Oak — ... x | 40 14 '654 | Epping. 
Do. ie m 98 — 0 625 Sussex. 
id m eL 40 10 "714 Wandsworth. 
American Oak ... uu xr 44 "9 681 
English Beech ... as P 658 | From Oxfordshire. 
o ae a sel] 97 5 438 From Epping. 
Riga Fir s os fhe 10 602 
Malabar Teak ... s xl H4 14 “606 
Ceylon Teak  ... Wie Il WX 8 "796 
icum PRE NRF a UIS MERERI 
