Plants of the Land and Water, by M. and E. Kirby (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1857 Excerpt: ...turned to useful purposes, meet your eye. That ragged boy sweeping the crossing, and begging you, with a faltering voice, real or assumed, to remember 'poor Jack, ' holds in his hand a broom, the fibrous substance of which was cut by the wild Indians of Brazil, from the stems of a palm. That gentleman, dressed in the tip of the fashion, who playfully swings his cane, little thinks that he is in fact carrying the young plant of a palm. That fine lady's parasol knob, what is it but a coquilla nut, turned into that shape? Those chip hats, so extensively worn on fine summer days, what are they made of P--the leaves of a Cuban palm. Look at that stand with heaps of dates upon it, gathered on the borders of the great desert of Sahara, and eagerly purchased by the people. Look at those fine cocoa-nuts, grown on the shores of the Indian Ocean, and the Carribean Sea, and here retailed in penny slices to the humbler inhabitants of the British metropolis. Step into a house, and there too you will observe many products obtained from palms, in the most remote corners of the globe. Micrococcus, palm of Chili. "That thick brownish matting, now so generally used for covering halls, staircases, and offices, is woven from the husk surrounding the cocoanut. Those beautiful pieces of furniture that arrest your attention, are made of various kinds of palm-wood. That elegant little plaything, you see in the hands of yonder child, was skilfully manufactured of the bone-like kernels of the vegetable ivory-palm. Those fine candles, lighting up the room, what are they composed of, but the fatty substance, extracted from the fruit of the oil-palm and the cocoa-nut? That sago, which under various disguises appears at the dinner table, is also the produce--the pith of palms, nouris...