365 



wc owe the chief or rather nearly the whole of iho Flowers 

 which adoru our Gardens; it is to information first drawn 

 from their discoveries that we are indebted for our nuincrous 

 varieties (Jf Fruits and Culinary Vegetables; their science is 

 the best system of Mnemonics for retaining the names of the 

 numerous cultivated objects of the Gardener's care; their Sci- 

 ence aids him to an enlightened practice, and to an iiitelli;,'^ible 

 language. The same observations apply to Chemis.try ; the 

 nature of Soils, of Manures, of the food and functions of Plants 

 would all be unknown but from the analyses which Chemists 

 have made for the benefit of the Cultivators of the Soil. With- 

 out a knowledge of it, many of the gardener's simplest 

 operations must be unintelligible to himself, and consequently 

 be casually performed ; for they are learnt by rote or stumbled 

 upon by chance. We know that every plant has a particular 

 temperature in which it thrives best ; a particular modification 

 of food ; a particular degree of moisture; a particular intensi- 

 ty of light ; and those particularities vary at different periods 

 of their growth. It is certain that Plants are subject like all 

 organized bodies to various influences. Acids are injurious to 

 some; alkalies to others ; the excess of some of their constitu- 

 ents, and the deficiency of others insure disease to the Plants 

 to which such irregularities occur. Disease is acc(.>m])anied by 

 decay more or less extensiye and rapid; and if these cannot be 

 checked by salutary applications and treatment, death ulti- 

 mately ensues. 



Now if it was possible for any Science or Sciences to teach 

 the cultivator of Plants, how to provide for them all the fa- 

 vourable contingencies, all the appropriate necesaries above 

 alluded to, and to protect them from all those which are noxi- 

 ous to them, the art of cultivation would be far advanced to 

 peifection — Now such Sciences are Botany and Clicmistry, 1 

 do not mean to assert that these Sciences, as at present known 



