LXXX1II.] 



OF SELBORNE. 



225 



peculiar produce, our natural wants bring on 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, without 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 botanist 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 distin- 

 guish the annual from the perennial, the hardy from the tender, 

 nor the succulent and nutritive from the dry and juiceless. 



The study of grasses would be of great consequence to a 

 northerly and grazing kingdom. The botanist that could 

 improve the sward of the district where he lived would be a 

 useful member of society : to raise a thick turf on a naked soil 

 would be worth volumes of systematic knowledge; and he 

 would be the best commonwealth's man that could occasion 

 the growth of " two blades of grass where only one was seen 

 before." 



SELBORNE, June 2, 1778. 



LETTER LXXXIII. 



TO THE HONOURABLE DAINES BARRINGTON. 



IN a district so diversified with such a variety of hill and dale, 

 aspects, arid soils, it is no wonder that great choice of plants 

 should be found. Chalks, clays, sands, sheep-walks and downs, 

 bogs, heaths, woodlands, and champaign fields, cannot but furnish 

 an ample Flora. The deep rocky lanes abound with filices, and 

 VOL. I. G G 



