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of us who have not within the range of our acquaintance some one or 

 other, the result of whose labours we have often wished could be made 

 available for the general good, but whose habits of retirement, or, it 

 may be, the " res angusta domi," had always kept in the back ground. 

 Now, your useful little publication seems just adapted for the very 

 purposes 1 allude to, and I think I am justified in saying, that the ex- 

 pectations of both editor and contributor must have been very fairly 

 realized; and I am glad to think that the pages of 'The Phytologist' 

 have recorded many valuable hints, and put your readers in posses- 

 sion of much pleasing information respecting Botany and botanists. 



Having premised thus much, let me draw your attention to another 

 part of the subject, less gratifying indeed (for every medal has its re- 

 verse), but which I trust you will see in the same light as myself; and 

 as * The Phytologist ' is the avowed organ of enlightened science and 

 practical Botany, permit me, through the medium of its pages, to 

 awaken a sympathetic feeling in favour of those very treasures that 

 are the objects of our favourite pursuit. And let me, ere the botaniz- 

 ing season has commenced, impress upon the minds of collectors the 

 desirableness of forbearance and moderation, when culling specimens 

 for their herbaria, — particularly amongst what are rapidly becoming 

 the "plantas rariores" of our island. I frequently caution brother bo- 

 tanists on this head, and seldom get more than a smile in return. But 

 if the legitimate end of Botany be a more intimate acquaintance with 

 plants in a growing state ; and if it be more delightful to feast our eyes 

 on these gems of the earth in the garden of Nature, than to handle a 

 dry and often disfigured specimen in the herbarium of a botanist ; — 

 surely it is a matter of grave moment, that the war of extermination 

 which has lately been waged against our best and rarest plants, should 

 at length be put an end to. 



Some of your readers may perhaps say that 1 am fighting with a 

 shadow, or that my own alarms have pictured an exaggerated state of 

 things ; but when I see a recently-formed Society, determined, I sup- 

 pose, to outstrip all others in the work of extermination, putting forth 

 a list, including some of the rarest of our indigenous plants, and de- 

 siring its contributors to send no more of them, as there are enough on 

 hand to distribute for several years ; — can it be said that my fears are 

 altogether groundless ? What pretty picking there must have been, 

 to amass such a lot of treasures ! And the machinery by which such 

 a system is kept alive, is not less alarming. Tradesmen, who cannot 

 devote the time to it themselves, or else are verily ashamed of being 

 caught at it — " pal mam qui meruit ferat" — send forth their apprenti- 



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