found. The brown dust of ferns consists of the spores which in these lower plants serve the purposes of seeds.

1. Oh, the little flax flower!
It groweth on a hill,

And be the breeze awake or 'sleep

It never standeth still;

It groweth, and it groweth fast;
One day it is a seed,

And then a little grassy blade

Scarce better than a weed;

But then out comes the flax flower,
As blue as is the sky;

And "'Tis a dainty little thing,"
We say as we go by.

2. Ah! 'tis a goodly little thing;
It groweth for the poor,
And many a peasant blesses it
Beside his cottage door.

He thinketh how those slender stems
That shimmer in the sun,

Are rich for him in web and woof,
And shortly shall be spun.

He thinketh how those slender flowers
Of seed will yield him store;

And sees in thought his next year's crop
Blue shining round his door.

3. Oh, the little flax flower!

The mother then says she,

"Go, pull the thyme, the heath, the fern,
But let the flax flower be!
It groweth for the children's sake,
It groweth for our own;

There are flowers enough upon the hill,

But leave the flax alone!
The farmer hath his fields of wheat,
Much cometh to his share;
We have this little plot of flax,
That we have tilled with care."

4. Oh, the goodly flax flower!
It groweth on the hill,

And be the breeze awake or 'sleep
It never standeth still;

It seemeth all astir with life

As if it loved to thrive,
As if it had a merry heart

Within its stem alive.

Then fair befall the flax field,

And may the kindly showers
Give strength unto its shining stem,
Give seed unto its flowers.

1. The same food would not suit all nations, because different degrees of heat and cold have such an influence on the human body, as to make different kinds of food necessary in different parts of the earth.

2. In most countries in temperate climes the staple food is wheaten bread. A wheat field when the young plant is first springing up looks much like a field of grass. Wheat has a fibrous root and blade-like leaves, but the hollow knotted stem grows much taller than that of ordinary grass. On the top of each stem is an ear, which at first is a green flower, and afterwards the full fruit or grain.

3. The hard dry grains are threshed to get away the husks or chaff surrounding them; the grain

RICE.

&

then being ground in a mill, the inner white portion yields flour, and the outer coat bran. The stems are useful as straw.

4. In some far Eastern countries the "staff of life' is not wheaten bread, but rice. The rice plant is a species of grass, whose grains grow in clusters very much like our graceful dancing oats. As the plant grows best in very moist soils, lowlying lands subject to floods are preferred for its cultivation. Rice fields are called paddy fields. The rice is generally rubbed between flat stones instead of being threshed to remove its yellow husks. Rice forms the staple food of the people of India, China and Japan. It contains little fat, and is easily digested, but the people have to eat large quantities of it.

5. When the Pilgrims came to America the Indians taught them how to cultivate Indian corn or maize. They found it a most strengthening

AN EAR OF MAIZE, A CROSS-
SECTION OF THE EAR, AND
A KERNEL OF THE FULL

SIZE.

MAIZE, OR INDIAN CORN.

food. There are many varieties of corn: fodder corn grows the largest; sweet corn is cultivated