50 BOARD OF AGRICULTUEE. 



inappropriate to devote this hour to a consideration of the 

 nature and objects of Botany, its relations to agriculture, and 

 the position it should occupy in the education of farmers. 

 The study of this science, with suitable facilities and a proper 

 regard to its practical applications, cannot fail to add im- 

 mensely to the material wealth, the intellectual and sesthetic 

 culture, and thus to the happiness and general welfare of the 

 community. Nevertheless many, even of our best-informed 

 people, not only have no appreciation of its power to please or 

 benefit, but actually regard it with prejudice, so vague and 

 erroneous are their ideas concerning it. 



Some suppose it treats merely of flowers, and consequently 

 while well enough as a pastime for school-girls, is utterly un- 

 worthy the attention of a sensible and industrious man or 

 woman. They have an idea that the sunflower, the poppy, 

 the hollyhock, and such like blossoms, are the loftiest, most 

 intricate and most profitable themes with which the botanist 

 has to do, — which is just as correct as to suppose the science 

 of anthropology to consist in the study of hats and bonnets. 

 Flowers are, indeed, conspicuous and important parts of 

 plants, where they occur, and well worthy our admiration and 

 study. But a large portion of the species of the vegetable 

 world are flowerless, yet they must be included in botani- 

 cal science, and we shall find that the knowledge of some of 

 them is of the utmost importance to agriculture. 



Others, again, imagine the chief business of the botanist to 

 be the gathering and pressing of specimens which, in their 

 appearance, are calculated to awaken feelings of disgust rather 

 than of pleasure in the breast of the unscientific observer. 

 Dried plants are of much service for purposes of investigation 

 and reference, but their acquisition is by no means the chief 

 end of the science. Many a person has collected an admirable 

 herbarium who was no botanist in any proper sense of the 

 term. 



As chemistry originated in alchemy, which was a search for 

 the elixir of life, destined to cure all diseases, so the early 

 botanists were incited to a critical examination of plants by a 

 desire to procure new medicines, and ascribed remedial virtues 

 to every species, even to the most inert. The first work on 

 botany in the English language was entitled, in the antique style, 



