THE CULTURE OF FLOWERS. BOTANY. 395 



made between them; the physiology of plants, so far as it is 

 understood, which admits us at once into some of the most won 

 derful and beautiful secrets of nature ; the different modes of 

 culture which different plants require ; their peculiar adaptation 

 to various soils and climates, so strikingly as it displays the 

 benevolent adaptations in the works of a wise and omniscient 

 Providence ; the acclimation of different plants, and the curious 

 changes which, under such acclimation, they undergo, and by 

 which, like many animals, they are brought from a savage into 

 a domesticated state the presence of certain plants in certain 

 localities, found nowhere else, and where their presence would 

 seem indispensable to render such places habitable to human 

 beings j the economical uses of different plants for food, for cloth 

 ing, for building, for mechanical purposes, for naval purposes, for 

 fuel, for coloring, for light ; the medical uses of different plants, 

 so extensive as it is found to be in every pharmacopoeia ; the 

 infinite variety of fruits, not for subsistence merely, but for lux 

 ury ; the uses of plants in the fine arts, for imitation, for adorn 

 ment, and for taste ; the chemical qualities or properties of plants 

 in their particular uses, and in their general influences upon the 

 atmosphere which we breathe, in the gases which they take in. 

 and those which they exhale : the control and influence which 

 human sagacity and power have been able to exert over the vege 

 table world in acclimating plants, in propagating them, in fruc 

 tifying and engrafting, and changing the different species ; all 

 these matters, directly involved in the science of botany, render 

 it one of the most interesting of studies ; and, even in its present 

 imperfect state, it is the business of years to master it. The 

 extensive discoveries, likewise, which have been made of fossil 

 plants, in particular geological formations, which, as compared 

 with present existing species, lead to so many curious inductions 

 in regard to the past condition of the earth, open to the mind 

 many interesting subjects of inquiry. It is as obvious, likewise, 

 that the establishment of a common scientific and technical lan 

 guage, by which the description of a plant, wherever found, shall 

 be every where understood, and the plant, when met with, recog 

 nized, is of the highest importance. But botany, as it is com 

 monly taught in schools, and as it appears in botanical works in 

 general use, seems little else than a vocabulary of arbitrary and 

 technical terms, in a language not generally understood, creates 



