How Does a Tree Grow? Or, Botany for Young Australians

BY JAMES BONWICK,
Sub-Inspector of Denominational Schools, Victoria, Author of “Geography of Australia and New Zealand,” &c. &c.
JAMES J. BLUNDELL & Co., Melbourne; SANDS & KENNY, Sydney. 1857.
At the request of several Teachers, I have commenced a Shilling Series of School Books, chiefly to be confined to subjects of Colonial History and Popular Sciences.
The form of dialogue has been adopted with the “Botany for Young Australians,” from a belief that the sympathies of our young friends will be excited on behalf of the juvenile questioner, and their interest thus maintained in the study of the sciences.
A dialogue upon Astronomy will shortly follow; being a conversation between a father and his son, coming out to Australia, from Old England.
JAMES BONWICK.
Melbourne, April 17, 1857.

Willie was a fine rosy-faced boy of our southern colony. Though not eight years of age, he was as healthy and merry a lad as ever climbed up a Gum tree, picked up manna, or rode in a bullock dray.
His father had once occupied a good position in Old England; but the uncertainties and losses of business, and the constant struggle to uphold a respectable appearance with decreasing means, became so burdensome to his mind, that his spirits failed, and his energies sunk. His attention was directed to Australia, the land of mutton and corn, the home of health and plenty. Gathering up the wreck of the past, he left the country of taxation and paupers, and established himself on a small farm in Port Phillip.
The young hero of our story had been a year or two in the colony. It so happened he had a piece of land of his own, in which he proudly exhibited some rising cabbages, a few peas, and a flower or two. His father had given him a rose tree, which was the reigning beauty of the bed. It was upon the occasion of his parent’s visit to the garden, that the following dialogue took place:—