VI PREFACE. 



orders with very little trouble to myself. My 

 attention was more fairly aroused, and by learn- 

 ing one order after another, I soon attained a 

 sufficient knowledge of Botany to answer all the 

 purposes for which I wished to learn it, without 

 recurring to the hard words w^hich had so much 

 alarmed me at the outset. One great obstacle 

 to my advancement was the difficulty I had in 

 understanding botanical works. With the ex- 

 ception of Dr. Lindley's Ladies' Botany, they 

 were all sealed books to me ; and even that did 

 not tell half I wanted to know, though it con- 

 tained a great deal I could not understand. It 

 is so difficult for men whose knowledge has 

 grown with their growth, and strengthened with 

 their strength, to imagine the state of profound 

 ignorance in which a beginner is, that even 

 their elementary books are like the old Eton 

 Grammar when it was written in Latin — they 

 require a master to explain them. It is the 

 want that I have felt that has induced me to 

 write the following pages; in which I have endea- 

 voured to meet the wants of those wdiomaybenow 

 in the same difficulties that I was in myself. 



