196 Chapters in Modern Botany chap. 



of this problem, and what its history ; what the advantages 

 of the binomial nomenclature, defined and organised by 

 Linnaeus ; and what we are to understand by the much 

 disputed terms of species and genus — here are some of the 

 initial questions to be asked. Again, how shall we arrange 

 our genera into larger groups, of order, class, sub-kingdom, 

 and the like ? How did botanists classify before Linnaeus ? 

 What was his essential work, and what was the character 

 of his Artificial System ? How was his work continued 

 and developed by his school, and how far was it altered and 

 improved upon in the Natural System of De Jussieu ? 

 What of the subsequent development of this ? 



Nor can we answer these questions without asking more. 

 The most concrete way of doing this is, returning to the 

 landscape and foreground, the vegetation and flora, of our 

 former problem to endeavour to make from these an ordered 

 whole — a botanic garden ; or if this may not be, at least 

 a hortus siccus^ a herbarium, which, because of its very dry- 

 ness, may readily become far the completer garden of the two. 

 Still the garden has even more advantages than the at first 

 sight obvious ones, and as space forbids even outlining these, 

 it must suffice here to press upon the student the desirability 

 of discovering these by experience. A botanic garden need 

 not be on the scale of that of Kew or Edinburgh ; a small 

 college may have its acre or two, a school its rood or two, 

 an infant school its pole or two, even the dismallest of town 

 schools its window-boxes now, as by and by its little con- 

 servatory. For help as to practical details, the student or 

 garden-loving teacher may safely apply to any botanist of 

 his acquaintance, or failing such acquaintance, to the writer, 

 who has annual experience of this kind. 



Some account of the vegetable kingdom can be obtained 

 more easily than any other botanical information, although 

 even here again, as so often, better in foreign text-books 



