INTRODUCTION. 
In consequence of the increasing demand which has for some time existed for standard works 
upon Botany, HORTICULTURE, and AGRICULTURE, occasioned by the growing taste of the 
age for the study of these sciences, the proprietors of “ MILLER’S GARDENER’S AND 
Borantst’s Dictionary” have caused to be prepared the “ GENERAL SYSTEM or GAR- 
DENING AND Botany” contained in the following pages, which, together with the infor- 
mation comprised in the Dictionary of MILLER, will combine the improvements and dis- 
coveries which the labours of modern writers have so amply contributed to the advancement 
of these sciences. 
In the formation of this work it was found necessary to deviate from the alpha- 
betical arrangement adopted in the Dictionary of Mixer, in consequence of the numerous 
and almost daily changes which have taken place in the Botanical Nomenclature of late 
years, which have rendered that arrangement wholly useless as a mode of reference. It 
only remained, therefore, to choose between the Linnean artificial method, and the Natural 
System of Jussieu ; but the numerous advantages of the latter, particularly in an extensive 
work like the present, were too apparent to leave any doubt in the mind of the Editor 
as to which he ought to adopt. In a work, protessedly intended to form a Complete 
System of Vegetables, including the practical parts of Gardening and Agriculture, that 
plan of arrangement must undoubtedly be the best which brings under one view the genera 
and species of plants according to their relations of affinity, and therefore of their pro- 
perties. In the Linnean artificial method, it often happens, that genera, intimately related, 
are separated far apart into different classes and orders, merely on account of the difference 
in the number of their stamens and pistils ; a circumstance now found in many instances 
scarcely to be of sufficient importance, even to separate species, still less genera; and with 
regard to an alphabetical arrangement, it must be evident to every one conversant with the sub- 
ject, that it cannot be employed with advantage in any branch of Natural History. The plan 
of the present work is founded on that of M. de Candolle, in his invaluable works entitled 
Regni Vegetabilis Systema Naturale and Prodromus, with such alterations as were rendered 
necessary by the rapid increase of science, and with numerous additions of new genera and 
species, amounting to more than a third of those enumerated by that learned botanist ; so that, 
when finished, the work will be found to be the most complete system of Vegetables yet 
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