YIII.] IMPORTANCE OF BOTANY TO SOLDIEES. 189 



enjoyed more of the wonders and beauties of this 

 planet than the men of any nation, not even excepting 

 the Germans that this nation, I say, should as yet 

 have done nothing, or all but nothing, to teach in her 

 schools a knowledge of that planet, of which she needs 

 to know more, and can if she will know more, than any 

 other nation upon it. 



As for the practical utility of such studies to a 

 soldier, I only need, I trust, to hint at it to such an 

 assembly as this. All must see of what advantage a 

 rough knowledge of the botany of a district would be 

 to an officer leading an exploring party, or engaged in 

 bush warfare. To know what plants are poisonous ; 

 what plants, too, are eatable and many more are eat- 

 able than is usually supposed; what plants yield 

 oleaginous substances, whether for food or for other 

 uses ; what plants yield vegetable acids, as preventives 

 of scurvy; what timbers are available for each of many 

 different purposes; what will resist wet, salt-water, 

 and the attacks of insects ; what, again, can be used, 

 at a pinch, for medicine or for styptics and be sure, 

 as a wise West Indian doctor once said to me, that 

 there is more good medicine wild in the bush than 

 there is in all the druggists' shops surely all this is 

 a knowledge not beneath the notice of any enter- 

 prising officer, above all of an officer of engineers. I 

 only ask any one who thinks that I may be in the 

 right, to glance through the lists of useful vegetable 

 products given in Lindley's "Vegetable Kingdom " 

 a miracle of learning and see the vast field open still 

 to a thoughtful and observant man, even while on 

 service ; and not to forget that such knowledge, if he 

 should hereafter leave the service and settle, as many 

 do, in a distant land, may be a solid help to his future 



