for table use; while the pop-corn is a favorite with the children.

6. Maize or Indian corn belongs to the grass family. The leaves are long and narrow. The flower is in two parts. The tassel which nods at the top and scatters its pollen so freely is one part.

THE

The other part is the fine silken hair seen at the end of the ear. Each tiny thread comes from a kernel in the ear. The ear is incased in a leafy sheath. Cornstalks are fed to cattle with most beneficial results.

MANDIOC PLANT, SHOWING (a) A BRANCH; (b) THE ROOT.

7. In Turkey, and in the neighboring countries where the people live similar lives to the Turks, a grain called millet or durra is largely used as a breadstuff. It is

a small grain which makes a useful bread for hot countries, but in this country it is used to feed cattle and poultry.

8. By breadstuffs we usually mean only those grain fruits called cereals, which are largely used in the feeding of various nations. But we must

fitly consider here other kinds of food stuffs besides cereal foods.

plant is largely used.

9. In South America the root of the mandioc This root is poisonous until it has been prepared with fire to drive out the poison. When still more carefully prepared it comes into this country as tapioca, a good, starchy food from which puddings are made.

10. In the islands of the far East a similar food is extensively made from the starchy pith of a beautiful, tall palm tree; it is called sago. All these starch foods are useful to the human body as heat-givers, or force-producers.

11. In Scotland it is found that a grain much hardier than wheat must be grown, in order to ripen there. The oat is therefore largely grown, and may be reckoned the national food of the Scotch, who eat it as oat-cake, and oat-meal porridge.

12. Black bread is a favorite food in the northern parts of Europe. It is made from rye flour, is dark colored, heavy and sourish. It keeps moist for a long time.

13. Wheaten bread is the whitest and the sweetest. In olden England the people were glad to eat blencorn- that is, wheat blended with large quantities of inferior grain. In Ireland one of the chief foods is the potato; in the deserts of Africa dates,

pressed into a kind of cake, form almost the only food carried by travelers there.

1. Not only do plants furnish food, but they provide clothing and many other materials useful in daily life.

2. Mention has been made of the oils, gums and medicines obtained from plants. In the manufactures, plants and their products are very largely used. Plants are used in dyeing; for example, the hard logwood of Central America makes a red dye, while indigo, from India, produces a blue dye. Oak bark aids in the tanning of hides into leather. From the flowers of the rose, the violet and the lavender, and from many other highly scented plants, oils and essences are extracted for the making of perfumes.

3. The important textile manufactures, as we call the making of woven goods, include not only those in which the raw materials are produced from animals-as wool and silk; but those in

which vegetable produce is the raw material - as cotton, flax, hemp and jute.

4. Cotton is used for clothing more than any other material. It comes from a plant which grows about the size of a currant bush and bears a yellow flower. The flower is succeeded by a pod which bursts open when ripe. The soft, white, cottony down which surrounds the seeds then puffs out.

5. A cotton plantation is quite as pretty when white all over with these bolls, as when it is in full flower. Cotton will only grow in the hot parts of the earth; as our Southern states, India, Egypt and Brazil. Negroes can stand the heat better than other people, so they are mostly employed on the plantations in America. They pick · the cotton, and after the seeds have been removed from it by a machine called a cotton gin, they pack it into bales.

6. These bales of raw cotton are sent to the cotton factories of the North as well as those of the cotton-growing states. Large quantities are exported to European countries to be worked up there. Many thousands of men, women and children find employment in the cotton factories of England. The cotton fibers are twisted into threads; the threads are put into looms and woven into various fabrics, such as calicoes, muslins and prints.

7. In our country also grows another plant that is used to manufacture a most useful fabric. It is more largely cultivated in Ireland and in Holland, where its manufacture is very extensive. This is the flax plant, from which linen is made.

8. Flax is a slender, pretty, herbaceous annual, and bears a bright blue flower. The flowers are followed by seeds-known to us as linseed. The fibrous stems of the plant are pulled when ripe, and then steeped in water. After being dried they are beaten with mallets, and are then "heckled" by being drawn through a brush of fine steel needles, till the pulpy part is all removed and only the silky fibers are left.

9. The flax is then ready to be spun into threads; the threads are woven into linen and whitened by bleaching. Linen is not only strong but beautifully white and fine; it is cool, smooth, glossy, and more expensive than cotton. It may be of a light or heavy quality. Linen is used for table covers, bed coverings, and for clothing. Much delicate and dainty embroidery is made upon linen.

THE FLAX PLANT.

10. Hemp is another useful plant; it is related