nvariably found it situated in one of the choicest spots,
both as to soil and aspect; and if the hand of injudicious improvement
has not swept it away, there is still the 'Abbey-garden.' Even though
it has been wholly neglected--though its walls be in ruins, covered
with stone-crop and wall-flower, and its area produce but the rankest
weeds--there are still the remains of the aged fruit trees--the
venerable pears, the delicate little apples, and the luscious black
cherries. The chestnuts and the walnuts may have yielded to the axe,
and the fig trees and vines died away;--but sometimes the mulberry is
left, and the strawberry and the raspberry struggle among the ruins.
There is a moral lesson in these memorials of the monastic ages. The
monks, with all their faults, were generally men of peace and study;
and these monuments show that they were improving the world, while the
warriors were spending their lives to spoil it. In many parts of Italy
and France, which had lain in desolation and ruin from the time of
the Goths, the monks restored the whole surface to fertility; and in
Scotland and Ireland there probably would not have been a fruit tree
till the sixteenth century, if it had not been for their peaceful
labours. It is generally supposed that the monastic orchards were in
their greatest perfection from the twelfth to the fifteenth century."

Again, the

_NATURALIZATION OF PLANTS._

"The large number of our native plants (for we call those native which
have adapted themselves to our climate) mark the gradual progress of
our civilization through the long period of two thousand years; whilst
the almost infinite diversity of exotics which a botanical garden
offers, attest the triumphs of that industry which has carried us
as merchants or as colonists over every region of the earth, and has
brought from every region whatever can administer to our comforts and
our luxuries,--to the tastes and the needful desires of the humblest
as well as the highest amongst us. To the same commerce we owe the
potato and the pine-apple; the China rose, whose flowers cluster round
the cottage-porch, and the Camellia which blooms in the conservatory.
The addition even of a flower, or an ornamental shrub, to those which
we already possess, is not to be regarded as a matter below the
care of industry and science. The more we extend our acquaintance
with the productions of nature, the more are our minds elevated by
contemplating the variety