Part 8

_19th._--I have had a good deal of work at my strawberry bank, for Mr. Biggs warned me that the beds ought never to be dug, but constantly hand-weeded; and he recommended also that the runners should be nipped off as soon as they appeared. I undertook to do all this myself; and both weeds and runners seem determined that I shall not be idle.

This strawberry bank is such a very dry soil, that I found the plants wanted water continually; and I asked my uncle to let a little channel be made, for the purpose of bringing to the top of the bank a small rill that runs across the back of the shrubbery. Something I had heard about _irrigating_ meadows suggested this idea, and my uncle approved. The channel has been cut, and it brings the water on a level along the upper edge of my bank, from whence it trickles down the slope along each row of strawberry plants. When they have had enough, I put a slate edgeways across the channel, which acts as a little sluice, and turns the water aside into the pond. This method of watering has so far answered very well, for I think my strawberries look more healthy than any of the others; they are now in full flower, and I am in high hopes of having the first and best fruit to present to my uncle for his kindness.

_20th._--I had a long walk yesterday evening with Miss Perceval and Mary through some of farmer Moreland’s fields, which are shut up for meadow. The grasses are opening their blossoms, and Miss Perceval taught me the names of several that I had not known. She then asked me if I could describe the leading characters of the grass family.

I considered, and hesitated, and tried; but my attempts were very awkward, and I acknowledged that trials of that sort were sometimes exceedingly useful in making us acquainted with our own ignorance. She smiled, and put the same question to Mary.

Mary said, “I will do my best, but on condition that you will tell me where I am wrong. The stem is generally smooth, and its hollow cylindrical form enables it to stand upright even when four or five feet high; it is usually jointed, which gives it additional strength; and it is terminated by the flowers, which are either tufted, or in spikes, or panicled:--the leaves are alternate, and always undivided--one of them springing from each knot, and enveloping the stem with a sheath, which is split down to the knot. All grasses have a chaffy flower inclosed in a glume or husk; and each flower has a single seed. These are all the general characters that I can recollect, which mark the tribe distinctly.”

“Very clear, indeed,” said Miss Perceval, “and quite full enough. The grasses are easily distinguishable from all other plants, except the Cyperacea; and even they shew a well-marked line of separation, as their stems are sometimes triangular, and very seldom jointed; and the sheath is always entire, not split like that of the grasses.

“The grasses are of the greatest importance,” she continued, “in the economy of nature; they form in most countries the chief covering of the earth; they are the principal support of terrestrial animals; and you know that the basis of all agriculture is the cultivation of plants which belong to their order.”

Miss P. easily allows herself to be drawn out, and before we reached home, we obtained the following particulars of that numerous family.

“There are about eighteen hundred species already known; and the industry of botanists is every day adding to the list: there are both land and fresh-water grasses, but no marine grass. They occur in every soil; generally in society with other grasses, but sometimes a single species will be found occupying a considerable district. Sand appears the least favourable to their growth; but even sand has species peculiar to itself. They are spread over the whole vegetable kingdom, from the equator to the polar regions; and from the sea-shores to the tops of the highest mountains, at least to the line of perpetual congelation.

“We are still in want of a perfect natural classification, by which their distribution on the globe might be made more distinct: at present, each of the ten groups into which they are arranged, contains too many, so that not one of the groups belongs exclusively to any one zone. Some, however, may be regarded as tropical, and some as chiefly inhabiting the temperate climates. The variation of the grasses in the different continents is still less perceptible; there is scarcely any difference between those of North America and those of the temperate regions of the European continent. Between the two temperate zones also the distinction is inconsiderable. Of thirty-six species from the Cape, thirty occur in the northern hemisphere; while in other tribes of plants, Southern Africa has many that are peculiar to itself. I may mention _poa_ as being one of the most extensively distributed genera; some of its species are found in every part of the world, from Spitsbergen to New Holland.”

“We may say then,” said Mary, “that latitude has but little influence on these plants.”

“Yes, it has a decided influence,” said Miss Perceval, “on their vegetation; the tropical grasses acquire a much greater height, and almost assume the appearance of trees. Some species of the bamboo, which you know belongs to this tribe, are fifty feet high. The leaves too are broader, and approach more in form to the leaves of the other families of plants.”

I then asked Miss P. to give me some idea of the distribution of those grasses which are cultivated.

“The cultivated grasses,” she said, “which extend farthest to the north in Europe, are barley and oats. These, which in milder climates are not generally used for bread, afford the inhabitants of Norway, Sweden, and Scotland, their chief vegetable nourishment. Rye comes next to these; it is the prevailing grain along the borders of the Baltic, and in part of Siberia. Next follows a zone including Europe and a large part of Western Asia, where rye disappears, and wheat almost exclusively furnishes bread.

“The next district extends across Barbary, Egypt, Persia, and the countries of the East, where, though wheat abounds, rice and maize are extensively cultivated; and in some of those countries the sorghum, which yields a grain resembling millet, and the poa Abyssinica, are largely used by the inhabitants. In the eastern parts of the temperate zone, including China and Japan, rice predominates over all other grains. Between the tropics, maize prevails in America, rice in Asia, and both in nearly equal quantities in Africa; probably because Asia is the native country of rice, and America of maize. The native country of wheat has not yet been ascertained, but there are few places into which it has not been introduced. Several other grains and plants that supply food, are cultivated in the torrid zone, but we cannot touch on them now, as they are not grasses.

“In the Highlands of South America, there is a distribution similar to that arising from difference of latitude. Maize is not found beyond the height of six thousand feet, from thence to nine thousand feet the European grains abound, advancing upwards in this order; wheat, then rye, and then barley. The larger esculent seeds of the grasses were named, by Linnæus, Cerealia, from Ceres: he included rice, wheat, rye, barley, oats, millet, and maize.”

This morning we were talking over all we had learned yesterday from Miss P. about the grasses, when my uncle invited us to his study, and showed us some dried specimens of feather-grass which grows in Europe, and is larger and more curious than the pretty little species that you have in Brazil. The feather is six inches long, with a kind of a spiral form at the lower end, which twists or untwists according to the degree of dampness in the atmosphere. We held a piece of it over the urn at tea, by which it was instantly put in motion, so that it would make a very nice hygrometer. I wish I was acquainted with Harry and Lucy, and I would send them the bit my uncle gave me. Miss P. says that, as the seed ripens, the flower closes over it into a sharp point, and that as the stalk is slightly barbed, it works its way into the ground by the effect of damp acting on the twisted part.

_21st, Sunday._--I asked my uncle this morning to explain what he meant by the Levitical dispensation, and by the New dispensation, to which he has so frequently alluded.

“I will with pleasure, Bertha,” said he. “It gives me great satisfaction to perceive that you reflect on what you are told. Never allow yourself to be contented with half knowledge.

“You know that, in consequence of the fall of man, a system of divine grace for his redemption was promised by the Almighty; and that it commenced with the mysterious promise that the seed of the woman should bruise the head of the serpent. But as things in the natural world are only permitted to reach perfection gradually, rising from infancy to maturity, so it is, likewise, in the moral world: and this gracious scheme of mercy, instead of being at once displayed in its full extent, was gradually unfolded at different periods, until the promised seed was at length manifested in Jesus Christ. These successive communications have been called dispensations, because the knowledge of God and of his merciful intentions were _dispensed_ or revealed by them. There have been three of these dispensations, the patriarchal, the Levitical, and the Christian; but they belong to the one system of Providence, and are all linked together, the redemption of the human race being the beginning and the end of the whole. The proper modes of worship were at the same time distinctly ordained; and, however different the institutions which were severally dispensed may appear to us, we may feel assured that each of them was peculiarly adapted to the moral state of the world when it was promulgated.

“During the term of the patriarchal dispensation, which comes first in order, it pleased God to make known such a portion of his will, and to dispense throughout the world such a degree of knowledge of his purposes, as would have been abundantly sufficient to have conducted mankind to heaven, if they had not wilfully resisted the benevolent offers that were made to them, and turned aside from the easy path of duty that was prescribed. The patriarchal dispensation was evidently intended to be _universal_ in its offers, as well as in its conditions; for Adam would of course communicate to the numerous generations of his children, with whom he was contemporary, the knowledge, which he had himself derived from direct revelation, of God’s gracious will and intentions. But this universality was of short duration. Animal sacrifice appears to have been appointed as a type of that mighty sacrifice or atonement by which mankind were to be enabled in the fulness of time to triumph over their spiritual enemy; and the conduct of Cain in rejecting it produced an immediate distinction between the servants of God and those who were seduced to follow the principles of his apostasy. The terms on which that general atonement had been offered were neglected; the reconciliation of fallen man by means of the promised seed was slighted, and the lamentable corruption which spread amongst the early inhabitants of the world led to the awful judgment of the Deluge.

“Thus ended the first period of the patriarchal church. It was renewed in the descendants of Noah, and for a long period retained its original character of universality, till other apostasies took place. These, however, were of a very different nature from that of Cain. The occasional appearances of a superior race of beings, ministering under a human form between God and his creatures upon earth, probably led to what has been called Hero-worship. Surprising as this perversion may appear among people whose immediate ancestors had the singular advantage of direct communication with the Supreme Being, it seems to have taken deep root in the human mind; for, in the most enlightened nations of antiquity, we find a continual disposition to look back on departed heroes and conquerors, not only with a sort of pious veneration, but even to consider and address them as tutelar deities. Always prone to be led away from the plain and simple truth, human weakness found another early source of corruption in the worship of the heavenly bodies: their splendour, and their obvious influence on all the pursuits of mankind, produced a superstitious reverence, which by an easy transition degenerated into adoration; and it has been remarked, that in the early records of almost every country we find that the sun and moon were regarded as deities; and that fire was the constant emblem under which they were worshipped.

“The prevalence of these idolatries after the deluge may be inferred from various passages in the Scriptures; and particularly from the direct prohibitions contained in the laws that were given to Moses. But amidst all the depravities and abuses that had thus disfigured the patriarchal religion, the belief in the necessity of expiatory sacrifice was constantly maintained; and though the horrid corruption of that tenet gave rise to the sacrifice of human victims, there is no doubt that they dimly shadowed out a general belief in a future divine victim. Thus you perceive that, revolting as all these impious corruptions were, yet they had for their original foundation the very principle of the system of atonement and redemption; that ‘without shedding of blood there is no remission of sins.’

“The consideration of the other two dispensations we must defer, my dear Bertha, to another opportunity.”

_22nd._--Mary and I went this evening in search of the moth of the little pear-leaf caterpillars: we shook a gooseberry-bush, and numbers of them came forth. They fly in the day-time, never going far at a time, and cautiously conceal themselves in the nearest bush.

This little (_seratella_) moth is of a brownish colour, with numerous black dots and stripes on the fore wings, which are beautifully fringed with feathers. The inferior wings are very small, and have also a fringe on the margin. This moth is particularly distinguished by the extreme length of the hind feet; they are twice as long as the body, and are thought by some to act like a pair of oars in regulating their flight, and in helping to maintain the body in equilibrium.

My aunt told me that some years ago the depredations of this insect were considered as a species of blight, and the insect was so little known, that no description of it was to be found in either French or English entomologies. She believes that every blight that affects our fruit-trees is produced by insects, whose visits are encouraged by certain dispositions of the atmosphere. The germs of the future race are lodged ready to be called into existence whenever the weather be favourable to them. The cure then must be to eradicate the germ, but this can only be known by tracing the habits of these minute creatures. “What a field,” added my aunt, “for exercising the industry and observation of young people; and not only in acquiring knowledge, but in turning that knowledge to useful purposes.”

_24th._--We accompanied my aunt and uncle yesterday in a very pleasant expedition. We boated to Elmore early in the morning to breakfast with Mrs. Maude, and heard some very entertaining letters from her daughter, which she was so kind as to read to us.

Miss M. has been in town for three weeks, and the friends she is with have made great exertions to shew her every thing interesting. In the midst of all her hurry, however, she has written constantly home, describing all she does, and sees, and thinks, that can interest her father and mother. She was not very fond of early rising; but now, in order to prevent any thing from interfering with these letters, she has the resolution to get up and write them before her friends’ breakfast hour. She has almost excited my envy by her repeated visits to the British Museum--to galleries of beautiful paintings--to botanic gardens and stoves--to collections of beasts, and birds, and insects,--to tunnels and suspension-bridges, and to all sorts of curious machinery; and she has had the great advantage, too, of having seen all these things in company with people who could explain them to her. Alas! such things can be found only in London.

After we had heard these letters, we went on to Gloucester, where I had not yet been; and though it was not London, I had the pleasure of seeing a great deal that was quite new to me, and very interesting.

The pin manufactory we saw in every part, from the straightening the brass wire before it is cut into the proper lengths, to the last operation, by which the pins are whitened. But as Marianne will find all the particulars detailed in the Book of Trades, I will only say, that the thing which seemed to shew the most expert fingers, was the putting the pins into the heads, and riveting them by a slight blow on an anvil. This is done by children, who take the heads out of an iron pot in which they have been heated, and instantly pop the bits of wire into them; and the never-failing exactness with which it is done is really wonderful. My uncle afterwards told us that a patent has been lately obtained for a very ingenious improvement, by which the head is raised upon the wire itself, so that the whole pin consists of a single piece of brass.

The sticking the pins into the papers, which are folded and placed against the edge of the bench, is also very curious. And when I recollected the great variety of people who had been employed in preparing the materials from the time the metals were dug out of the mine till the wire was drawn, along with those whom I had just seen engaged in the different operations in this manufactory, I could not but feel astonished that one small article of female dress should cost such accumulated labour.

We then walked to the cathedral. What a magnificent building, mamma! the twelfth part of a mile in length, and more than two hundred feet high. As to the interior, it is grand beyond any thing I can attempt to describe, but you must remember it too well to make that necessary.

I will mention, however, a curious circumstance that my uncle told me as we were passing among the monstrous pillars of the nave: an attempt was made not very long ago to reduce them in size, or to chisel them into cluster columns; but they were found to be only hollow cases of masonry filled with loose stones. I could not help feeling glad that it had failed, for the contrast of their heavy, solid appearance, with the light elegance of the cloisters, I think improves each other. The choir is beautiful; and often as my aunt and uncle had seen them, they could not help stopping to admire the carved work and tracery of the stalls.

This fine cathedral was begun in the eleventh century, the cloisters were added in the fourteenth, and the west front was not completed till the fifteenth. My uncle took the opportunity of shewing me the different styles of Gothic architecture belonging to those periods; and on our road home, he explained the principal distinctions between the Saxon, Norman, and English styles, and the gradual alteration of the circular, sharp pointed, and flat arches. The subject was entirely new to me, but I felt so much interest in it that he has promised hereafter to go through a little course of architecture with me, from the Egyptian and Grecian to the Roman and Gothic.

_25th._--We were talking to-day about the impressions of plants perceptible in coal, and I asked my uncle to tell me what plants they were; he referred me to Miss Perceval, who says that it appears from the researches of several German botanists, and particularly from those of Dr. Martius, that some of the Brazilian plants, which are so familiar to us, dear mamma, seem to have such a resemblance to those impressions, that there can be scarcely a doubt of their identity.

“The tree ferns,” she said, “exhibit several characters in common with those ancient plants; one species in particular, the stem of which having a remarkable _tessellated_ or chequered appearance, exactly represents some of the petrified forms found in the German coal mines. Dr. Martius describes ten different kinds of fern found in coal, each distinctly marked by some of those peculiarities which distinguish the living plants.

“As very numerous examples of the arborescent as well as the herbaceous ferns occur in the coal formation, it can scarcely be doubted that this order of plants was formerly much more numerous than it is now; and that the forests of the primitive world were abundantly stocked with them.”

“That is the more probable,” said my uncle, “as there is reason to suppose that ferns were among the first plants that spread over the surface of the globe, and that they were the basis of a more general vegetation, by preparing the ground for others. Their large fronds probably deriving as much nourishment from the atmosphere as from the earth; while their annual decay rapidly increases or improves the productive soil.”

“I do not mean, however,” said Miss Perceval, “that the antediluvian woods consisted entirely of ferns; for the remains of many other plants, and of some large trees, are found mixed with those of fern--just as the living woods of the equinoctial regions, though very rich in ferns, consist of a great variety of plants of all sizes. Several specimens of palms, and of bambusæ, have been discovered; and the cactus is another tribe which appears very abundantly amongst these petrifactions.”

“And I believe,” said my uncle, “that the remark I made respecting ferns may be repeated of those tribes,--that they are furnished with a singular structure of organs adapted for respiration, and thereby for inhaling nutritious juices from the atmosphere.”

“Yes,” said Miss P., “Saussure found that a single leaf of the cactus opuntia inhaled four cubic inches of oxygen in the course of a night from the atmospheric air in a glass vessel, in which he inclosed it; and we may, therefore, consider those tribes, and the yuccæ, and lychnophoræ, which flourish in a dry sandy soil, as the pioneers of vegetation, and intended by Nature to inhabit the rude wastes of a new world.”

After some further conversation on this subject my uncle said, “As the delicate parts of any vegetable substances would be entirely destroyed if transported to a great distance by floods, it is evident, that those plants, whose remains are found well preserved in a fossil state, must have been inhabitants of the countries where the strata were formed. This consideration has given rise to many interesting speculations on the former climate of Europe, and its apparent changes; but if mammoths and elephants were clothed with fur to enable them to endure a Siberian winter, why may we not suppose that there were also species of palms and tree ferns suited to our temperate regions? Another curious inference may be drawn from the examination of vegetable remains: those found in what the German mineralogists call brown coal, exhibit in their wood, in their fruit, and their leaves, sufficient proofs of their belonging to indigenous, or, at least, to modern races of plants; while those which occur in what is termed black coal are all unknown or exotic: there can be no doubt, therefore, that those two coal formations belong to two very different ages of the globe.”