PREFACE TO THE SECOND VOMME. XI 



largely dictated by the head of a Department wliieli persists ia 

 maiutainiug that pernicious practice.' 



Another work which all interested in the development of the 

 industrial products of Burma would do well to peruse is entitled 

 ' New Commercial Plants and Drugs,' Christy & Co., 155, Fen- 

 church Street, London, but the Botany has already reached to too 

 great a length to permit more than a passing allusion to a topic 

 which might almost claim a volume to itself. 



I do not think I can better close than by quoting some 

 remarks of Dr. Prior, in his introduction to the ' Popular Names of 

 British Plants,' since, mutatis mutandis, they are doubtless as true 

 of many of the plants of Asia, as those of Europe. After glancing 

 at the neglect of the popular names of plants by scientific Botanists, 

 Dr. Prior- goes on : " Besides, admitting to the full all that can 

 bo urged against them (popular names) from a purely botanical 

 point of view, we still may derive both pleasure and instruction 

 from tracing them back to their origin, and reading in them the 

 habits and opinions of former ages. In foUoAving up such an 

 analysis, we soon find that we are travelling far away from the 

 humble occiipation of the herbalist, an'd are entering upon a 

 higher region of literature, the history of man's progress, and the 

 gradual development of his civilization. Some of the plants that 

 were familiar to our ancestors in Central Asia bear with us 

 to this day the very names they bore there, and as distinctly 

 intimate by them the uses to which they were applied, and the 

 degree of culture which prevailed where they were given, as do 

 those of the domestic affinities the various occupations of the 



primeval family The most interesting, in this respect, of 



the names that have come down to us, are those which date from 

 a time antecedent to the settlement of the German race in England, 

 names which are deducible from Anglo-Saxon roots, and identical, 

 with allowance for dialectic peculiarities, in all the High and Low 

 German and Scandinavian languages, and, what is particularly 



for further remarks on this subject, sec Appendix A, Part II. p. GS9. 

 lutroduttion, /. c. p. x. 



