BALM-Melissa officinalis-is a native of the south of France, and was introduced into this country in 1573. It is a hardy perennial.

Balm was long famed for its medicinal virtues ; and although it has ceased to be invested with its former supposed potent qualities, it still retains a kind of posthumous fame, and "balm" has become the generic name for a soothing healer of wounds, both of the body and the mind. Balm was the plant which the adept Paracelsus selected from which to prepare his elixir vitæ, his primum ens melissæ, whereby he was to renovate man; and, if he did not bestow on him absolute immortality, to produce a very close approximation to that state. Such strange conceits of ill-directed minds have, however, long gone by; and balm, stripped of its fancied virtues, is now only employed as an infusion in preparing a cooling drink, or in giving flavour to a weak factitious wine.

There are other seasoning herbs which were once much esteemed in this country, but are now little used. Among these are, Tarragon, Chervil, Borage, Costmary, and Marigold. The leaves and flowers of these plants were in request for their slight aromatic taste; and they sometimes imparted their flavour to "cool tankards," and sometimes to soups and salads. There was a notion that they produced exhilaration of spirits, and some of them were called "comforters of the heart." The delusion has passed away, yielding in too many cases to more violent excitements, and in others to the conviction that the heart must derive its best comfort from a steady performance of our duties.

We cannot conclude this part of our volume without noticing that Saffron (a species of Crocus)

nitted, and remains co rain is actually ripened. e harvest in the United S the end of August, and month of September, o ne reaping is performed -oes, and these are followe e rice into bundles. ltivation is found to be ext groes employed in its p flooding and drying of the here natural evaporation p must necessarily be prej exposure to this unwholes white population abandon re of negro cultivators. T ed among the labourers in at while the general increa States exceeds by far that ttled countries of Europe, ves must continually be b e of life, from the more nor nion.

ultivation of rice is very lly carried on in the r dy, which can be irrigate Po. The meadows chosen After the see fectly flat.

turned on and allowed to depth of several inches d of its growth, and until rops are taken successively manner without manuring far exhausted, that it must for a time with other crop on of rice harvests can be system of agriculture prov

was once largely cultivated in England to be used in cookery. We find it mentioned in the "Forme of Cury" of the time of Richard II.; and in the Northumberland Household Book. Harrison says, that the produce of an acre was usually worth £20. Such are the changes of taste, that a plant which was grown in fields to meet a general demand, is now entirely gone out of use.

CHAPTER XV.

ESCULENT FUNGI.

THE fungi are a most singular class of productions, and their place in the kingdom of nature has been made a subject of much discussion among physiologists. Some refer them to the animal, some to the vegetable, and others to the mineral world; while one naturalist* has asserted that the fungi ought to be excluded from all these divisions and considered as intermediate beings. It would be foreign to our subject to give any abstract of the different arguments by which each party has supported his peculiar opinion. In the present day it is tolerably well established, and generally admitted, that the fungi are of vegetable production.

They have the habits of vegetables, but when analysed they yield the same products as animal matter, and in a state of putrefaction give out a similar odour. Ammonia, the phosphoric salts, and albumen, very analogous to that of animals, are found in the fungi. It might be supposed that such substances would be highly nutritious. This, however, is not the fact, as they are among the most indigestible of edibles. Most of them, when grown in any situation, and all of them in some situations, are hurtful and even poisonous. They differ from many noxious vegetables in this, that their poison cannot be separated by boiling, or even by distillation, which has been satisfactorily proved by the experiments of Parmentier.

* Necker's Mycitologia,