6 A NOTICE OF THE 



\ 



(Myrica Grate], that it is still worse. The rag-weed (Senecio jaco- 

 bsea\ in arable land, betrays an ill-cultivated loam. The marsh 

 marigold (OaltJia palmtris), or the wild water-cress in water 

 meadows, tells the owner that the land is fully irrigated. The 

 common rattle (Rhinanthus cTiristi] that a meadow is exhausted. 

 The pry (Carex dioica) that water is stagnating beneath its sur- 

 face ; and these are only a few of the truths which wild flowers 

 teach the intelligent cultivator. ' Botanists have, indeed, long 

 been at work for the farmer a fact no one will be willing to dis- 

 pute who remembers that the sloe, the blackberry, and the crab, 

 are nearly all the fruits indigenous to England; and that hardly 

 a grass, a flower, or a vegetable, that is now cultivated, is a native 

 of the island."* 



It is to the study of botany we are indebted for a knowledge 

 of certain vegetable growths, which are destructive to timber. 

 " Mr. Schweinitz had, in his collection, fine specimens of the 

 Dematium aluta, taken out of the ships of war built by our 

 government, on Lake Erie, where, in a few years, he remarks, 

 1 this little fungulous enemy completely destroyed that fleet which 

 had so signally vanquished the armament of Britain.' "f 



Linnaeus, "by his botanical knowledge, detected the cause of a 

 dreadful disease among the horned cattle of the north of Lap- 

 land, which had previously been thought equally unaccountable 

 and irremediable."| 



A large portion of the materials employed in civil and naval 

 architecture, and many of our most valuable medicines, are de- 

 rived from the vegetable kingdom. It is estimated that at this 

 time there are about 85,000 species of plants, which have been 

 distinctly characterized. For the means of distinguishing them 

 from each other, and consequently, for the ability to recognize, 

 amidst the host, those adapted to the purposes for which we seek 

 them, we are indebted to the labors of botanists. 



The department of natural history which relates to insects, 

 is less conspicuous than botany ; but it is not less important in 



* The Farmer's Encyclopaedia. By Cuthbert W. Johnson, Esq., F. R. S., 

 &c. Adapted to the United States. By Gouverneur Emerson. Philadel- 

 phia, 1844. 



f A Memoir of the late Lewis David Von Schweinitz, P. D. By Walter 

 R. Johnson. 1835. 



% James E. Smith. Introduction to Botany. 



