(gvica ciborata. 
Natural Order: Ericacece — Heath Eamily. 
E find but few Heaths among the plants of a mixed green- 
chouse, as the idea prevails that they require a particular 
atmosphere and condition of temperature to grow them 
well. In Europe, houses are devoted exclusively to their 
culture. The British Heaths grow in bleak and barren places, 
are utilized by the poorer class to thatch their cabins, who, 
like the poor of every nation, are driven by necessity to make use of 
all the gifts of nature, when they can so ill afford the gifts of art. The 
most cherished Heaths come from Southern Africa, of which there are 
several hundred in cultivation. Anyone who has torn a fern from its 
place in a wild retreat, has noticed its hair-like roots. This is the case 
with the Heath; and a desideratum of its culture is that its roots must 
never become dry, neither must it rest in sodden soil; for once dry, the 
foliage becomes sere and brown beyond recovery, and too much water decays 
the roots. 
OWEET, solitary life! lovely, dumb joy, 
That need’st no warnings how to grow more wise 
By other men’s mishaps, nor the annoy 
Which from sore wrongs done to one’s self doth rise; 
The morning’s second mansion, truth’s first friend, 
Never acquainted with the world’s vain broils, 
When the whole day to our own use we spend, 
And our dear time no fierce ambition spoils. 
— Earl of Ancruin. 
/AH! to lie down in wilds apart, 
^ Where man is seldom seen or heard, 
In still and ancient forests, where 
Mows not his scythe, plows not his share, 
With the shy deer and cooing bird! 
To go, in dreariness of mood, 
O’er a lone heath, that spreads around 
A solitude like a silent sea, 
Where rises not a hut or tree, 
The wide-embracing sky its bound! 
