PRELIMINAET DISCOURSES. 



friends, under the impression that the present will most likely be 

 his last attempt, in this way, to promote among them an acquaint- 

 ance with the Vegetation of his native County. He has devoted 

 the leisure hours of a number of years to the favorite employment 

 of endeavoring to excite a taste for the study of Plants, and to aid 

 the researches of his juvenile contemporaries, in that charming 

 department of Natural Science. His efforts have been amply repaid, 

 by the gratification attending the communion of kindred spirits; 

 and such is his delight in the pursuit, that sometimes, in his dreamy 

 reveries, he indulges the nattering idea that if, peradventure, his 

 work should survive him, he may continue to be an humble auxiliary 

 of our youthful Botanists and, in some sort, a companion of their 

 studies even when the flowers of Chester shall be blooming on his 

 grave. 



WEST-CHESTER, PENNSYLVANIA. 

 April 2Sth, 1853. 



