'* PENTANDRIA. 



grounds till the season of the year was sufficiently 

 advanced to make the pastures sound and dry, being 

 convinced that later in the year the Hemlock would 

 be rejected by the scent alone. The farmers took 

 his advice and the evil was removed/ This is an 

 illustrious instance 1o demonstrate the advantage a 

 scientific man has over plodding ignorance ; and may 

 even serve to shew the mean part of the creation, 

 who see no value in any thing but what they can im- 

 mediately convert into money, that even a little in- 

 tellect in natural history may contribute to their views 

 of human happiness. 



FOOLS PARSLEY, JEthusa senapium. Among 

 the advantages of Botany, that is not the least con- 

 siderable which enables us to avoid using, for domes- 

 tic purposes, those plants which may be poisonous or 

 prejudicial. This plant, common in every garden, so 

 much resembles parsley that it is easily taken for it, 

 and cases have occurred where the most dangerous 

 consequences have been the result of this ignorance: 

 while common parsley, Apium peiroselinum, is a 



T Linnaeus says, the cattle that died were seized with con- 

 vulsions, swelled, and in a few days expired with horrible 

 bello vings. 



Stillinsfleet is of opinion, that what makes low grounds 

 noxious to sheep is not the moisture, but the plants that grow 

 there. For it is observed by shepherds, that the great danger to 

 sheep is immediately after a fresh spring grass, which he sus- 

 pects is owing to their cropping the young and tender 6hoots of 

 poisonous plants in common with their proper food. 



