DESCRIPTIVE AND SYSTEMATIC BOTANY. 55 



upon "Tillage and Fertilizers," that we may understand how 

 to apply our knowledge to the production of the most profit- 

 able crops, as well as how to improve and perpetuate the 

 fertility of our soil. 



We have thus alluded to a few facts of Structural and Phy- 

 siological Botany, to show what an immense and important 

 field of research is opened to the botanist without any regard 

 to the names of plants. Descriptive and Systematic Botany 

 are, however, by no means to be neglected. The human 

 mind naturally associates together similar objects, and sepa- 

 rates those which are unlike. The classification of j^lants is, 

 therefore, a necessity, and greatly facilitates the study and 

 comprehension of the vegetable kingdom. Various systems 

 of classification have been suggested, most of them of a very 

 artificial character and so quite unsatisfactory. Dioscorides, 

 for example, in the first century of our era, names the six 

 hundred species he describes under the following four divisions, 

 viz.: Aromatic, Alimentary, Vinous and Medicinal Plants. 

 Linnosus made twenty-four classes, based upon the organs of 

 fructification. This system was remarkably simple and com- 

 plete, and rendered it very easy for beginners to learn the 

 names of plants, though often associating together those which 

 were very unlike. In more recent times, the so-called natu- 

 ral system has been adopted, the plan of which is to bring 

 together groups of plants which resemble each other, not 

 merely in one particular, but in their general characteristics. 

 Thus we have the Rosacece, furnishing the queen of flowers 

 and nearly all the fruits of the temperate regions ; the Palm- 

 aceoe, 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, Avith proper 

 means, to acquire a correct apprehension 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 im- 

 portance 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 un- 

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



