258 
TIIE. LADIES' FLORAL CABINET. 
choice vegetable, and it was in them that the Cauli¬ 
flower was developed from a Cabbage brought from 
Cyprus. Lucullus brought a Cherry tree from Persia, 
and carried it in full fruit in his triumphal procession. 
The Fig was introduced into Italy also from Persia. 
All the acquisitions made by the Romans were quickly 
disti'ibuted among their colonies and these people thus 
became the greatest benefactors of the conquered nations. 
The Plane tree, a relative of our native Plane or Button- 
wood, was brought from,Asia and spread over Greece, 
Italy, and Southern Europe, and then to Gaul, the Gauls 
being taxed to pay the cost of planting it. The Cherx-y, 
Box, Walnut, Peach, Vine, Poplar, Pear, Fig, Mul- 
bei’ry, Damson and Medlar were taken to England, and 
in this way the Roman officials sui'rounded their villas 
with the trees and shrubs, and stocked their gardens 
with the fniits and vegetables, to which they had been 
used at home. The sweet Bay and the Laurel were also 
thus introduced into England. 
Then came the Moors who overran Spain and brought 
Alfalfa or Lucem with them. Following these warlike 
agencies came the l-eligious agency of the monks and 
the Crusaders. The old monks were assiduous cultiva¬ 
tors of the soil, and fruits and vegetables were much 
improved by their labors, and plants were spread by 
means of travelers from place to place and from garden 
to garden. Going out of the direct path of chronology, 
we might just here refer to the similar agency of mod¬ 
ern missions by which new seeds and plants have been 
gathered from the most distant and savage countries 
and distributed over civilized countries. The good work 
of Moffat and Livingston in Africa, and the Catholic 
missions of Ghina, India and Spanish America all 
tended greatly towards this valuable result. 
But to return, we might notice the influence of trade 
and commerce and the results of private or associated 
travels of enterprise and l-esearch. It was in 1458 that 
the first “ Dutch bulbs ” were grown in Holland. The 
Ranunculus, Anemone, Crocus, Tulip, Hyacinth and 
Narcissus were brought by Dutch traders from Persia, 
and were soon scattei-ed over the gardens of Western 
Europe. We might here mention the Tulip mania which 
afterward had such a mad career through the Western 
World, when single roots sold for enormous sums, and 
when an unhappy speculator was well-nigh ruined by 
the devouring of a plate of 1 choice bulbs of enormous 
value by a hungiy visitor, who took them for onions. 
It was in 1523 that the English beer-drinkers first en¬ 
joyed the flavor of Hops, and a few years after this Pota¬ 
toes were carried to Spain by the Spanish explorers of 
South America, whence they were taken to Italy and * 
Burgundy, before Sir Walter Raleigh carried them to 
Ireland, twenty-four years later, in 1581. The Dutch 
carried the Potato to Southern Africa and India in 
1800, and it is now scattered over the whole world by 
way of trade. In exchange for the Potato, Tobacco, 
and Maize, America obtained from the East, Sugar, 
Coffee, and the Cocoa-nut. 
The Sugar-cane has an eventful history. It was orig¬ 
inally brought from China, and passed into Spain with 
the Moors, into Mexico with the Spaniards, into Brazil 
with the Portuguese, and into the West Indies with the 
English and French, the latter bringing it into Louis¬ 
iana. Our great plant, Maize, was spread all over 
America, from Chili to the shores of the Great Lakes, 
by the restless movements of colonists or the natives. 
It was fifty years after Columbus’ first voyage that it 
was first grown in Spanish gardens. It then reached 
the Levant, and the grain became an article of trade 
with the Venetian merchants. With them it passed up 
the Danube into Hungary, and by the Eastern caravans, 
■which they supplied with merchandise it was taken 
into India, China and Japan. The Venetian merchants 
also helped to distribute coffee from Arabia into Turkey, 
and supplied Spain and Portugal with the seed with 
which South America was stocked. 
But we must hasten to notice the magnificent services 
of private travelers, as Humboldt, Hooker, Fortune, 
and others too numerous to mention; the cultivated 
officials of vai’ious governments in foreign countries, 
and the ardent pursuers of scientific knowledge of every 
kind who, cai’rying their lives in their hands, have 
penetrated unknown lands everywhere in search of 
floral tx-easures. The valuable results of these labors 
appear everywhere, in our gardens, on our lawns, in our 
greenhouses, and in the modest window gardening of 
the humblest cottage, and have added enormously to 
our comforts and gratification as well as to the profits 
of agriculture. Time and space fail to recount all these 
histories, indeed volumes would be required to name 
the services done the world by these men and others 
who, impelled by love of the beautiful and the useful, 
have made up by aiT and civilization what the world 
lacked by nature, and who have scattered over the lands 
which gave them birth, and from which other lands 
have procured them, the treasures of the great globe 
itself. We thought of mentioning the pernicious weeds 
which have traveled far and wide over the surface of the 
earth, but in the more agreeable thoughts of what we 
possess that is valuable and beautiful, we are willing to 
forget and forgive all that may be disagreeable and 
hurtful, and take cheerfully the little bad we may have, 
in the vast world of good we owe to the travels of 
plants .—Henry Stewart, in N. Y. Times. 
How Nutmegs Grow. —Nutmegs grow on trees which 
look like Pear trees and are genei’ally not over thirty 
feet high. The flowers resemble the Lily-of-the-valley, 
are white and very fragrant. The nutmeg is the seed 
of the fruit, mace, the thin covering over the seed. 
The fruit is about as large as a peach. When ripe it 
breaks open and shows a little nut inside. The ti’ees 
grow on the islands of Asia and tropical America. They 
bear fruit for 70 or 80 years, having ripe fruit upon 
them all the seasons. A fine tree in Jamaica has over 
4000 nutmegs on it every year. The Dutch used to have 
all this nutmeg trade, as they owned the Banda Islands 
and conquered all the other traders and destroyed the 
trees. To keep the price up they once burned three 
piles of nutmegs, each of which was as big as a church. 
Nature did not sympathize with such meanness. The 
nutmeg pigeon, found in all the Indian Islands, did for 
the world what the Dutch determined should not be 
done—carx-ied those nuts, which are their food, into all 
the surrounding counti-ies, and trees grew again, and 
the world had the benefit. 
