BOTANY AS A RECREATION FOR INVALIDS. 779 



think it must be replied that there do remain classes of organic phe- 

 nomena unaccounted for. It may, I believe, be shown that certain 

 cardinal traits of animals and plants at large are still unexplained ; 

 and that a further factor must be recognized. To show this, however, 

 will require another paper. 



BOTANY AS A EECKEATION FOR INVALIDS. 



By Miss E. F. ANDREWS. 



IN a recent number of " The Popular Science Monthly," the writer 

 of an interesting article, on " Thomasville as a Winter Resort," 

 mentions the want of public amusements there as a subject of regret 

 from a hygienic point of view. The criticism is a just one, and unfor- 

 tunately applies to most of our Southern health resorts — St. Augustine, 

 with its yacht club and sea-bathing, and Jacksonville, with a few other 

 cities large enough to attract theatrical companies, forming possible 

 exceptions. 



Invalids, as a rule, have a great deal of leisure on their hands — 

 more of it than they like — and to fill this time pleasantly is a question 

 involving a good deal more than mere amusement. The importance 

 of mental distraction to invalids is a fact too universally recognized 

 to call for comment here, my object in this paper being merely to sug- 

 gest a mode of distraction that, in my own experience, has not only 

 been attended with the happiest results physically, but has proved a 

 source of intense and never-failing pleasure. I allude to the study of 

 botany — not the tiresome, profitless study of text-books, but of the 

 woods, and fields, and meadows. 



The beauty of this pursuit is that it takes the student out-of-doors, 

 and throat and lung troubles, as has been truly said, are house-dis- 

 eases. I am speaking, of course, to those who have begun to fight the 

 enemy before he has captured the inner defenses, and who are sup- 

 posed to be strong enough to do a reasonable amount of walking, and 

 some solid thinking. For botany, though the simplest of the sciences, 

 can not be mastered without some effort. You are met right at the 

 threshold by that fearful, technical vocabulary which must be con- 

 quered before advancing a single step — a labor so formidable and re- 

 pellent, when undertaken according to the old school-book method, 

 that I do not wonder so many have shrunk away from it in disgust 

 or in despair. 



But even this task, apparently as formidable as learning a new 

 tongue, can be made a pastime if rightly undertaken. Don't try to 

 learn definitions or commit long strings of names to memory from a 

 book, but get some simple work and take it out into the woods with 

 you. Don't worry with writing schedules or trying to draw outlines 



