When the mahwa tree is in bud, the ground beneath it is cleared of weeds, sometimes by burning. A single tree may yield as much as six to eight maunds of flowers; even thirty maunds have been asserted to have been collected from one tree. These flowers have a luscious but peculiar taste when fresh; when dry they resemble in flavor inferior figs. They form a very important addition to the food of the poorer classes in those districts where the tree abounds, particularly in the neighborhood of woodlands and jungles. They are specially useful in economizing cereals in seasons of famine and drought. They are sometimes eaten fresh, but more commonly sun-dried, and are usually con. sumed with rice and the lesser millets, or with seeds of various kinds, and leaves. It is said that a man, his wife, and three children may be supported for one month on two maunds of mahwa flowers.†

It is not, however, as a direct article of food, nor as a material for the preparation of a rough spirit by fermentation (a very common use of these flowers) that mahwa blossoms are now recommended. It has been affirmed that they may be employed as an abundant and very cheap source of cane-sugar. In the Morning Post of October 15, 1885, appeared an article on this subject, in which it was stated that "if the mahwa flowers be available in sufficient quantities for the sugar-makers of Europe, there can be no question that the days of the beetroot are over, and sugar cane will go the way of all discarded products." This prediction depends, however, upon another condition besides that of the abundance of the flowers. If the sugar they contain be wholly or chiefly canesuger, that is, sucrose, then the argument is not without weight. But the nature of the saccharine matter of the mahwa does not appear to have been ascertained. MM. Riche and Rémont (Jcurn. de Pharm. et Chimie, 1880, p. 215) stated that the air-dried flowers contain sixty per cent. of fermentable sugar, of which about one seventh is crystallizable. The material

of course, of the dried flowers. These may have suffered some change beyond the mere loss of water, but the evidence they afford on chemical examination is not favorable to the view that they are likely to compete with sugar-beet or sugar. cane as a source of cane-sugar. Here is the result of an analysis of a sample of mahwa flowers (from the Kew Museum) in their air-dried condition:

Cane-sugar Invert-sugar

7.2

2'4

2.2

4.8

150 12.6

The flowers analyzed had a slight smell of fermented saccharine matter and a dis. tinct acid reaction. But it is not at all probable that they could have contained any large proportion of cane sugar even when quite fresh, and that fifteen sixteenths of that sugar had been inverted during the process of desiccation. We cannot argue from analogy in this case. For while the nectar of many flowers con. tains no sugar except sucrose, invertsugar occurs in some blossoms, as well as in many other parts of plants. Even the unripe and growing stems of the sugarcane and of many grasses contain much invert-sugar. It must, however, on the other hand, be remembered that cut sugarcanes imported into this country contain a large amount of invert-sugar, and that if they be kept a week only after the harvest the invert-sugar naturally present in the juice shows a marked increase and the cane-sugar a corresponding diminu tion. On the whole, then, so far as the materials at my disposal enable me to judge, I believe that the saccharine matter of fresh mahwa flowers will be found to consist mainly of dextrose and levulose, and that consequently they will not be available as a material for the economic production of sucrose.

A. H. CHURCH.

A CLASSIC LANDSCAPE.

THIS wood might be some Grecian heritage Of the antique world, this hoary ilex wood, So broad the boughs, so deep the solitude, So grey the air where Oread fancies brood. Beyond, the fields are tall with purple sage; The sky hangs downward like a purple sheet

A purple wind-filled sail-i' the noonday

heat;

And past the river shine the fields of wheat.

O tender wheat, O starry saxifrage,

O deep-red tulips, how the fields are fair! Far off the mountains pierce the quivering air,

Ash-colored, mystical, remote, and bare.

How far they look, the mountains of mirage!
Or northern hills of Heaven, how far away!
In front the long paulonia blossoms sway
From leafless boughs across that dreamy
grey.

O world how worthy of a golden age!
How might Theocritus have sung and found
The Oreads here, the Naiads gathering

round,

Their pallid locks still dripping to the ground.

For me, O world, thou art how mere a stage Whereon the human soul must play alone, In a dead language with the plot unknown, Nor learn what happens when the play is done.

(The marriage of our earth's divinest things, The power of mountains with the lifelike voice,

The grandeur, and the pathos of the sea :)
A small stone town, built nowise orderly,
And partly perched in niches natural
Of rifted crags, whence every day at dusk
Each household light gleams like a lofty star :
A level waste of broad wave-bordering sand
And a long snowy line of breaking surf:
Above, the verdure of far-rolling slopes,
Where skylarks warble, sheep-bells tinkle soft,
And heather flames a purple deep as dawn:
And higher still, the giants of the hills,
That raise their mighty shoulders through the
clouds,

And sun themselves in ecstasy of light:
The homes these are of the wild choral winds,
The haunts of the fair ghosts of silvery mists,
The birth-beds rude of strong and stormy

streams

And through their sundering gullies, silent poured

Rich floods of sunset, and ran reddening far Along the sandy flats, and, Christwise, changed Old ocean's ashen waters into wine,

As once we wandered towards the church of eld

That on the brink of the bluff headland stood (God's house of light to shine o'er life), and shook

Its bells of peace above the rumbling surge,
And spoke unto us of those thoughts and ways
That higher than the soaring mountains are,
It may be we shall roam that marge no more,
And deeper than the mystery of the sea.
Or list the voice of that far-booming main,
Or watch the sunset swathe those regal hills
With vast investiture of billowy gold;

But unforgetting hearts with these will hoard
(With mountain vision and the wail of waves)
Some wistful memories that soften life,
The peace, the lifted feeling, the grave charm,
The tender shadows and the fading day,
The little pilgrim on the sun-flushed sands,
The love, the truth, the trust in those young

eyes,

The tones that touched like tears, the words, "I tread

In your steps, father, and they lead to you." Macmillan's Magazine.

WINTER.

DREARY and white the heavy pall of snow Lies on the patient breast of mother earth. She died, I fear me, at the New Year's birth, And round her grave, the winds are all a-blow, And rock, and cry, and moan, now loud, now low.

My weary heart faints 'neath the sense of dearth

Of hope, of laughter; can I think that mirth Will rise once more, when streams forget to flow?

And yet beneath yon keen and cruel glare
The Christmas roses, small, and pale, and

sweet,

Blossom I trow, turning their faces fair,
The first faint glimpses of the sun to meet.
Give me their faith; let me their credence
share,

Let me believe once more the Spring I'll greet.

All The Year Round.

From The National Review. THE LAWS RELATING TO LAND.

BY SIR JAMES F. STEPHEN.

SOME of the complaints made against the existing laws relating to the inheritance and transfer of land appear to me to be well founded, others appear to be in fact, though not in words, complaints against the unequal distribution of wealth, and in particular against what are regarded as the bad results of large landed estates. Also some of the remedies proposed appear to me to be reasonable, and likely to be useful. Others appear to be either visionary in their efforts or likely to be mischievous in their results.

The object of this paper is to state the principles on which, in my opinion, the laws relating to the inheritance and transfer of land should be framed, and to point out the particular alterations which, upon those principles, ought to be made in the existing laws on those subjects.

The first principle is that land is property, distinguished, indeed, from other property by certain peculiarities which it is important to bear in mind, but resembling other property in all its most important particulars. The proof of this is so obvious as to be almost trivial; but it is this: the value of land, both to the public at large and to individuals, depends upon the security of its owners in their rights. No man will lay out money, even on sowing a crop, unless he is sure to reap it; still less will he lay out capital in drainage, in building, in fences, in roads, or in a thousand other things, except on the same condition. And expenditure of this sort gives to land the whole of its commercial value. Again, the value of land depends on the same principles as the value of all other property. Land goes up and down in the market like hops, or wheat, or like shares and stock. If the increase or decrease of the value of the one is unearned, the same is true, in precisely the same sense, of the other. If the quantity of land in the country is limited, so is the quantity of railway stock. Lastly, the question of the accumulation of land in a few hands depends upon precisely the same principles as those upon which the

accumulation of other property in a few hands depends. No argument can be stated which proves the possession of a large landed estate to be a public danger which would not equally prove the posses sion of a large estate in stock or shares to be a public danger. Whether it is worth while to take precautions against the acquisition by one man of the whole county of York is just the same question, and must be decided on just the same principles, as the question whether it is desirable to take precautions to prevent one man from obtaining the whole stock of the Great Western Railway, or a practical monopoly of some particular branch of trade or manufacture. In a word, there is nothing special about land considered as a subject of property. The principles of political economy apply to it in exactly the same way, with exactly the same limitations as to movable property.

If land is property, like other property, it seems to follow, primâ facie, that, so far as its transmission either by way of inheritance or by transfer is concerned, it ought to be subject to the common rules relating to property. Simple and obvious as this principle appears, it is continually forgotten and overlooked, and sometimes denied, and that for contradictory reasons and from opposite points of view. The existing law was founded on the notion that land was the principal subject of property, and was greatly influenced by the principle that political power should accompany property in land, and that estates should not be subdivided — a view which, if seldom expressly maintained at this day, still exercises considerable influ ence. On the other hand, extreme Radicalism regards land as property subject to exceptional principles, and to be dealt with in an exceptional way.

The principle itself being so often for. gotten, it is natural that a limitation upon it which seems to be at least equally ob. vious should be forgotten also. It is that land, like every species of property, has its own distinctive physical characteristics, which cannot be overlooked by law without disastrous consequences. Its great leading peculiarities are that it is immovable; that every part of it bears

The inference from this is that land, meaning thereby all immovable property, must be held by title, though it cannot be held by title only -a consideration of the first importance in all schemes relating to the title of land. In order to appreciate the importance of this it is necessary to state and illustrate a principle frequently misunderstood or overlooked.

Possession and title, words which for this purpose need no further definition, though books have been written about them, are the roots of all property the two great kinds of evidence which show that anything whatever is the property of any man. In other words, whenever a question of property arises it must be determined either by the fact of possession shown to be rightful, or by the production of some sort of document vesting and limiting the rights in dispute. Regard being had to this, all property may be divided into three classes. Some kinds of property can be held by title only. Some are usually held by title, but may be held by possession. Some are usually held by possession, but may be held by title. These are not technical distinctions, they arise from the very nature of things, and no law which overlooks them can be a good one. They require some illustration.

To the first class belongs that enormous mass of property which consists of legal rights not inherent in or attached to any definite thing. Stock in the funds is the best illustration of property of this kind. The hundreds of millions of pounds sterling which make up the national debt are

western Railway consists of the permanent way and stations, in connection with which are used a vast mass of all sorts of movable property, rolling stock, ships, furniture, and many other things. All this property belongs to a purely ideal body, no one of the members of which has any sort of proprietary right in any part of it, movable or immovable. Their interest consists of a right to a share in the profits of the undertaking, which right has as little concrete existence as the company itself. It exists only in the registers in which it is recorded, and can be transferred only by documents. It has no individual character. £100 stock is £100 stock worth whatever may be its market price; but it confers as much and as little right to the permanent way as to the line of steamers from Holyhead to North Wall, or the engines at the Euston station,

Land in the legal sense of the word, which includes buildings and things fixed to, or growing out of the land, constitutes the second of the classes into which I have divided property, that which consists of things usually held by title, but which may be held by possession. The reason why this is so is that land is immovable, that its value depends upon the manner in which it is possessed and used, and that it is continually in the possession or occupation of one person, while it is the property of another. For these reasons the owner would constantly be deprived of his property, if it was held only by possession. On the other hand it cannot be held, like stock, by title only, because every piece of land has its own individual character, and it must be the subject of individual and, in almost all cases, exclu sive possession.

Movable things of all sorts, furniture, books, cattle, etc., are usually held by possession only, though, as in the case of articles under a bill of sale, they may be held by title. The reason is that the pos. session and the property are separated only in exceptional cases, and it is in