32 



the number of their coincidences, more especially as in some 

 of the details of Agriculture they were even superior to the 

 Gallic cultivators. No one can read Pliny wi'hout being struck 

 with the minute discriminations, the evident results of long, 

 attentive practice, which were displayed by those our fore- 

 fathers in the application of Marie to particular Soils ; * dis- 

 criminations which every Kentish Farmer at present, with 

 very little variation, confesses to be correct by his own prac- 

 tice. In the practices of threshing, mowing, &c. they were 

 confessedly superior to the Romans. Their implements were 

 different, as were the varieties of grain cultivated by the two 

 nations. f 



Now although these demonstrations of the Britons, being 

 attentive cultivators of the soil, do not immediately aTord 

 any illustration of the state of Horticulture among them, it 

 certainly is an earnest that it must have partaken of the general 

 care shewn to nutritious plants, for an attention to Plants how- 

 ever limited their number, as in the then infant state of Agri- 

 culture was the case; or whether directed by superstition for 

 magical purposes ; by a desire to obtain mendicaments for the 

 removal of diseases; or by a liberal desire to ascertain 

 their habits and relations ; always tends to one effect, — the 

 improvement of the Art of cultivating, the most useful. The 

 Horticulture of every country will be found to date an era of 

 permament improvement from the foundation of its Physic and 

 Botanic Gardens. Hence we may conclude that the attention 

 which the Druids are known to have paid to Plants was 

 propitious to the advancement of the art of cultivating those 

 deserving the care, although their researches were professedly 

 confined to the ascertaining their medicinal qualities. That 

 they noticed other Plants than those so gifted is demonstrated 

 by the numerous names appropriated to insignificant Plants, 



* Pliny b. xvii. c S, 7, 8, f Ibid, b, xviii. & xsxvi 



