BOTANY. 257 



elegancies of life. To plants we owe timber, Bread, 

 beer, honey, wine, oil, linen, cotton, &c. what not 

 only strengthens our hearts, and exhilarates our spi- 

 rits, but what secures us from inclemencies of wea- 

 ther, and adorns our persons. Man, in his true state 

 of nature, seems to be subsisted by spontaneous vege- 

 tation ; in middle climes, where grasses prevail, he 

 mixes some animal food with the produce of the field 

 and garden : and it is towards the polar extremes 

 only, that, like his kindred bears and wolves, he 

 gorges himself with flesh alone, and is driven to what 

 hunger has never been known to compel the very 

 beasts to prey upon his own species*. 



The productions of vegetation have had a vast in- 

 fluence on the commerce of nations, and have been 

 the great promoters of navigation, as may be seen 

 in the articles of sugar, tea, tobacco, opium, ginseng, 

 betel, pepper, &c. As every climate has its peculiar 

 produce, our natural wants bring a mutual inter- 

 course ; so that by means of trade, each distant part 

 is supplied with the growth of every latitude. But, 

 without the knowledge of plants and their culture, we 

 must have been content with our hips and haws, with- 

 out enjoying the delicate fruits of India, and the 

 salutiferous drugs of Peru. 



Instead of examining the minute distinctions of 

 every various species of each obscure genus, the bo- 

 tanist should endeavour to make himself acquainted 

 with those that are useful. You shall see a man 

 readily ascertain every herb of the field, yet hardly 

 know wheat from barley, or at least one sort of wheat 

 or barley from another. 



But of all sorts of vegetation the grasses seem to 

 be most neglected ; neither the farmer nor the grazier 

 seem to distinguish the annual from the perennial, 



* See the late voyages to the South Seas. 



