"I declare," said Willy's mother, "I never felt so proud in my life as when he gave me his arm to walk about the gardens; I fancied every body who passed us and smiled, seemed to think how happy I must be; and then he showed me all the curious trees which came from foreign countries; for, said he, I wish these gardens not only to amuse the people, but to teach them something; therefore I have planted trees and shrubs of various sorts, that those who wish to study the properties of plants may learn them, and turn their knowledge to some purpose; thus I have tried to make these gardens useful as well as pleasant." "But, Mamma," said Willy, "are trees of any other use but to look pretty and shade us from the sun?" This was the last use Willy had made of them, and he did not just then think of any other. "Willy!" exclaimed his mamma, "was the cherry-tree you climbed this morning of no other use?" "Oh, to be sure! ripe cherries grow upon it, and they are so good to eat; and then there are apples on apple-trees, and pears on pear-trees, and fruit of some kind or other on all the trees; but no," continued he, "after a little thinking, there is no fruit on the oak tree, nor on the elm, nor on a great many other trees." "Yes, there is," replied his mamma, "but the fruit is not good for us to eat; the oak bears acorns, which the pigs are fond of." "And I like them to play with, but not to eat; and I like horse-chestnuts to play with, but I like the good chestnuts to eat." "Well," observed his mother, "the oak and the elm, and the pine and the beech, and all those trees which do not bear fruit fit for us to eat, are of use to us for other purposes." "Oh yes, their fruit is fit to play with." "Something better than that, Willy; cannot you find out?" Willy thought and thought again, but he would not guess, as some children do, hap-hazard, without any reason; so his mamma helped him a little by bidding him go and stamp upon the floor, in a part of the room where the boards were uncovered. Willy, who was never fond of standing still, and preferred running or stamping to walking, set off with a hop, skip, and a jump, to the further end of the room, where the floor was uncovered, and began stamping on the boards with all his might; at length he suddenly stopped and exclaimed, "Ah, the boards! the boards are made of wood, and wood is made of the trunk of a tree; so that is the use of trees which do not bear good fruit." "And of those which do, sometimes," replied his mother: "the wood of the cherry-tree is one of the lightest; so if you want to have some light chairs that children can move about, you must have them made of the planks of the cherry-tree. The oak and the elm, and all those large trees whose fruit is not good to eat, are called forest trees, because they commonly grow in woods or forests; but fruit trees we plant nearer home, in our orchards and gardens, that we may easily gather the fruit." "Oh yes," cried Willy, "as Anna and I did."