66 BOARD OF AGEICULTURE. 



among their amateur customers. Extraordinary facilities for 

 this work have been enjoyed in England, in consequence of 

 the great number of her colonies in all quarters of the globe, 

 and the general attention given to such matters in a country 

 so abounding in persons of wealth and culture. David Douglas, 

 a botanist in the service of the Royal Horticultural Society, 

 sent to England more than fifty new hardy trees and shrubs, 

 and one hundred and fifty new herbaceous plants, from our Pa- 

 cific coast. He was finally killed by a wild bull while collecting 

 at the Sandwich Islands, being then only thirtj^-six years of 

 age. It is worthy of mention that more than half the botani- 

 cal collectors who have been sent abroad during the present 

 century have fallen in the field through sickness, accident or 

 violence. The amount of valuable labor performed by some 

 of the gentlemen who have gone from Europe to act as super- 

 intendents of botanic gardens in India and elsewhere is almost 

 incredible. Dr. Wallich, at Calcutta, forwarded to two thou- 

 sand one hundred applicants, in different parts of the world, 

 one hundred and ninety thousand living plants in the short 

 period of five years. Baron von Miiller, at the present time 

 director of the botanic garden at Melbourne, Australia, has 

 also been indefatigable in discovering • and distributing new 

 plants, as well as in introducing foreign species which seemed 

 likely to prove of service to the agricultural and horticultural 

 interests of that peculiar country. Among other things, he has 

 recommended the planting there of the cranberry, the blue- 

 berry and the huckleberry in swamps and wilds which now 

 produce no useful fruit or root. He has also begun the cul- 

 ture of the tea shrub, and has lately announced the invention 

 of a machine for curing the leaves by steam, with which two 

 men can do the work now requiring the aid of twenty-five 

 Chinamen. Is it not time for Americans to begin to do their 

 share in the great work of introducing new and valuable plants 

 into cultivation? 



If, now, we have attained to any just apprehension of the 

 nature and utility of botanical studies, we are prepared to 

 consider what provision ought to be made for this department 

 in the Massachusetts Agricultural College. The Board of 

 Agriculture, as overseers of the institution and guardians of 

 those public interests which are by law intrusted to them. 



