affords materials for building their houses, churches, and bridges, for every article of their household furniture, for constructing sledges, carts and boats, besides fuel for their hearths. With its leaves they strew their floors, and afterwards burn them, and collect the ashes for manure."

Sir William Ouseley describes the houses of the peasants in Turkey as being frequently built of pine or Fir trees; and says also, that "pieces of resinous Fir tree wood supplied the place of candles at Bedrowâs.”

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Hall, in his Travels in Scotland, says, " Among the better sort of people, tallow candles, and oil lamps, as well as wax candles, are sometimes used; but, as it is not only cheaper, but gives a better light, many upon ordinary occasions use only pieces of Fir, split thin, from the roots of trees found in the mosses; which, from the great quantity of the resinous and inflammable matter they contain, give excellent light. It is the business of the young people in the house to prepare and hold these candles, one of which affording nearly as much light as a torch, generally serves all in any one room of the house. Agreeably to this notion, when a rich man in London lately was extolling the candlesticks on the table, which were of massy silver, elegantly carved; a gentleman from Strathspey being present, said that these were not so valuable as the candlesticks in many parts of the Highlands of Scotland. A thousand guineas were immediately laid, that there were not better nor more valuable than those in all the Highlands. The gentleman who held the bet was allowed a sufficient time for the candlesticks to be brought to London for inspection, and proof that they had been used in the Highlands previously to the staking of the thousand guineas. When the evening

L

of the day arrived that the Highland candlesticks were to be inspected, four uncommonly handsome young men, in elegant Highland dresses, unexpectedly entered the room with blazing torches of fir in their hands. It was universally agreed that these were the candlesticks used in the Highlands, and those referred to when the bet was laid, and also that they were the most valuable. The gentleman, therefore, who proposed it, lost the bet." Vol. ii. p. 440.

Wordsworth notices the strong outline made by the dark Fir in the dusk of evening, which makes it one of the last objects visible:

"Unheeded night has overcome the vales:
On the dark earth the baffled vision fails;
The latest lingerer of the forest-train,
The lone black fir forsakes the faded plain."

He thus addresses an absent friend :

Vol. i. p. 67.

"And now I call the pathway by thy name,
And love the fir-grove with a perfect love;
Thither do I withdraw when cloudless suns
Shine hot, or wind blows troublesome and strong :
And there I sit at evening, when the steep
Of Silver-how and Grasmere's placid lake,

And one green island, gleam between the stems

Of the dark firs-a visionary scene."

Vol. ii. p. 279.

The soft murmuring of the winds in trees of this

genus has been noticed repeatedly :

"While o'er my head

At every impulse of the moving breeze

The fir-grove murmurs with a sea-like sound,

Alone I tread this path.

WORDSWORTH, ii. 280.

Virgil, speaking of different soils, says

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At sceleratum exquirere frigus

Difficile est; piceæ tantum, taxique nocentes

Interdum, aut hederæ pandunt vestigia nigræ."

It is hard to discover the pernicious cold; only Fir trees, and yews, and black ivy sometimes will indicate it.

Fawkes uses an epithet peculiarly applicable to its growth:

"Here spiry firs extend their lengthened ranks ;

There violets blossom on the sunny banks."
Bramham Park.

Fairfax terms it the "Weeping Fir;" in allusion to the turpentine that flows from it when wounded: Spenser also speaks of it as

"The fir that weepeth still."

W. Browne calls it

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The firre that oftentimes doth rosin drop."

The following evidently alludes to its use in shipbuilding :

“Th' adventurous fir that sails the vast profound.”

HARTE'S Statius, b. 6.

Drayton speaks of it as the tree of Mars:

"Fair Venus' myrtle, Mars his warlike fir,

Minerva's olive, and the weeping myrrh.”

Mr. Keats, with that poetic power which expresses much in a few words, describes to us the constant occupation of the Fir tree in the fruit season:

Aye dropping their hard fruit upon the ground."

It cannot therefore be said of the Fir tree as Voltaire said of his trees at Ferney, when being complimented upon their quick growth, he answered that they had nothing else to do but to grow.

LEGUMINOSE.

GLYCINE.

DIADELPHIA DECANDRIA.

Glycine is of Greek origin, and signifies sweet.-French, haricot en arbre; Italian, glicine.

THE shrubby Glycine, Glycine frutescens, or Carolina Kidney-bean Tree, was introduced here in 1724, by Mr. Catesby; it has woody stalks which twist themselves together, and twine round any trees that grow near, and will rise to the height of fifteen feet or more. The leaves somewhat resemble those of the ash in shape; purple flowers are produced in clusters from the axils, which are succeeded by legumes shaped like those of the scarlet kidney-bean, containing several seeds; but these do not ripen in England.