S6' TTfE CANADIAN HOKIICULTURIST. 



Plantarum, which was illustrated with wood-cuts. Althoush thi^ 

 was quite a step in advance of former writers, yet there was no at- 

 tempt at classification, without which no branch of natural history 

 can be studied with advantage. The first attempt at arranging plants 

 into classes, orders and genera, was made about the middle of the six- 

 teenth century, by Gesnor, a native of Switzerland. Towards the end 

 of the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth century, various 

 systems of classification were pK)posed in different countries. Tourne- 

 fort, a Frenchman, whose system depended in a great measure on the 

 corolla, was followed until it was found impracticable. Linnaeus, the 

 great Swedish naturalist, founded what is called the sexual or artificial 

 system of classification. Although this system is by no means perfect, 

 yet it still holds its ground, and has been the means of making the 

 3tudy of systematic botany so fascinating to all classes of people, from 

 the prince to the peasant. A somewhat different, and on the whole a 

 superior method of arrangement has been adopted since the time of 

 Linnaeus, called the natural system. This system takes a more extended 

 and philosophical view of the relations of plants than the system of 

 Linnaeus, and groups them together according to the relationship 

 whicli plants bear to each other in every part of their structure. A, 

 L. Jussieu, of Paris, may be considered the founder of this system. It 

 has been improred to som-e extent by Professor De Candolle, of Geneva, 

 and also by Professor^ Li»dley, of London. At the present time. 

 Professor Lindley is our highest authority, both in systematic and 

 physiological botany. 



It is scarcely possible to overrate the importance of botany to the 

 horticulturist. The structure and functions of the roots, stems, bark, 

 flowers and leaves must be pretty well understood before we can give 

 sufficient reason for preferring one mode of cultivation to another. There 

 may indeed be a certain measure of success in the different operations of 

 horticulture where there is no acquaintance with vegetable physiology. 

 In like manner the nostrums of a quack, who knows nothing of the 

 structure of the human body, will sometimes be as efficacious as the 

 prescriptions of a scientific medical practitioner. Still it is generally 

 admitted by people of intelligence that a knowledge of anatomy is 

 necessary for medical men, and also that a knowledge of physiological 

 botany is necessary for horticulturists. This is an age of scientific 

 investigation, tliereforc dogmatical assertions and empirical rules will 



