The strawberry grows quite low down upon the ground, and shoots out its young plants all round, wherever they can find spare room to stretch themselves.

Gardeners call the young shoots runners;" and some people say, that it is because they run along in this way that the plant is called the "strawberry plant. You know that to stray, to strew, and to straw, all mean to spread on the ground.

Some strawberries are very large, as large as a chestnut; others are not so large as a marble. We gather the strawberry in June, July, and August, but, in some countries, it ripens all the year round.

Children who live in places where there are many trees, often find the wild strawberry. It is very small, but very pretty, and good to eat. In the spring you will see its little white flowers, peeping up from amongst the grass and moss, which grow under the trees.

You must leave the flowers, and not pick them, if you wish for the fruit; then, in

the summer time, you will find tiny red berries, hanging where the flowers were.

Currants are so called because they were first seen in a country far from here, near a famous city named Corinth. This name was pronounced by the people who brought the currants from there, like the word Corant. And, if you will say this word out aloud, you will notice, that "currant" sounds something like it.

In the spring, you may see very graceful bunches of pale green, almost yellow, flowers, hanging from the currant bushes. These flowers are succeeded by small green berries.

Presently, these berries change colour, and, as they become ripe, we can see whether the fruit is to be black, or red, or white. They are very good for eating; as they are gathered from the bushes they make very juicy pies and puddings, and boiled with sugar they make excellent jam and jelly.

Most good house-keepers in the country take care to make currant jelly in the summer. It is very good for

sore

throats, and to make cooling drinks for

sick people.

It is said that gooseberries are so called because they are made into sauce to eat with young geese. A young goose is rather tasteless, and people, who eat it, fancy they must have something with a sharp taste to eat with it.

Ripe gooseberries, like ripe currants, are of different colours. Some are of a beautiful red, others are bright green, many are yellow. Some sorts, too, are covered with long hairs, while others are quite smooth. So you see, they are not all alike, though they are all very good.

We do not use currants, or strawberries, or raspberries, till they are quite ripe. We do use gooseberries before they are ripe, for puddings and pies; and, when ripe, we either eat them uncooked, or make them into jam.

Now you will like to read about the raspberry. As I have told you why we think gooseberries, strawberries, and currants received their

names, I will tell you what is said about the name of the raspberry.

Some people thought that it had a rough, rasping taste, which seemed to scrape the tongue, and so they called it the raspberry. I never felt this scraping, and I think the people who thought they felt it must have been very fanciful.

The raspberry leaf is not like the leaf of any of the other fruits which we have been talking of. It is not of the same colour on both sides.

All leaves are paler on the under side than they are on the upper side, because the sun does not shine on that side so much, and no leaves can be green without the help of the sun; but the leaves of the raspberry are quite white underneath.

THE WORLD AND THE MAP. THE world is round,-like an orange; it is sometimes called The Globe, because the word "globe" means something that is round. This great globe is made up of land and water. Water covers the largest part of it, and is called the Sea, or the Ocean.

The world is divided into many different parts; but before I tell you any thing about them, you must learn what the words-East, West, North, South-mean.

You know that we do not always see the sun in the same part of the sky. In the morning we see him in one place; and in the middle of the day we see him in another; and then,