RELATIONS OF BOTANY TO AGRICULTURE. 429 



groups of plants which resemble each other, not merely in one 

 particular, but in their general characteristics. Thus we have the 

 Rosacea', furnishing the queen of flowers and nearly all the fruits 

 of the temperate regions ; the Palmacece, containing the most 

 beautiful and useful trees of the tropics ; and the Graminacece, 

 producing fodder for cattle and most of the bread for the human 

 race. As there are only about one hundred and fifty orders of 

 flowering plants it is not a difficult matter for the student of 

 botany, with proper means, to acquire a correct appi-ehension of 

 the vegetation of the entire globe, so that wherever he may be he 

 may feel in a certain sense acquainted with the scenery about him. 

 The importance of botanical knowledge to the traveller, or even 

 to the reader of a book of travels, is so obvious that it hardly 

 needs illustration. Darwin says, "As in music the person who 

 understands every note will, if he also possesses a proper taste, 

 more thoroughly enjoy the whole, so he who examines every part 

 of a fine view may also thoroughly comprehend the full and com- 

 bined effect. Hence a traveller should be a botanist, for in all 

 views plants form the chief embellishment." Humboldt often 

 expresses his admiration of the plant world. In his Cosmos he 

 remarks that, " Although the character of different portions of the 

 earth depends on the combination of external phenomena, as the 

 outlines of mountains, the physiognomy of plants and animals, 

 the azure of the sky, the forms of the clouds and the transparency 

 of the atmosphere, it must still be admitted that the vegetable 

 mantle with which the earth is decked constitutes the main feature 

 of the picture." 



The ability of a person to enjoy and improve the constantly 

 changing scenes of travel will be readily seen to depend upon his 

 previous preparation by contrasting the experience of an Agassiz 

 with that of a common sailor upon the same journey. The one 

 is continually under the influence of interesting thoughts and 

 pleasurable emotions, during every waking hour of health, whether 

 on the land or on the sea. New facts rush in upon his already 

 crowded mind incessantly and are forthwith arranged in their 

 appropriate places to serve his great purposes in the various 

 departments of science. The ignorant, unthinking sailor, on the 

 other hand, goes whistling round the world, acquiring but little 

 information and utterly unable to use that. The mental habits and 

 capacities of educated and uneducated men are just as different in 

 overy-day life, — on the farm, or at a meeting of the Board of 



