PBELIMINABY DI8COFB8ES. 



already intimated the opinion, that an American Farmer should 

 blush to be ignorant of the objects of his peculiar care ; and I know 

 not why a Farmer's Wife, or Daughter, should be entirely excused 

 for a like deficiency. On the contrary, I am of opinion that it is to 

 Wives and Daughters we must look, for the commencement of a 

 salutary reformation in intellectual pursuits and discipline. The 

 work must begin at that early period of life, when the character is 

 being moulded under female auspices and care. The knowledge 

 here advocated, is unquestionably desirable for both sexes ; and I 

 sincerely believe, that the most effectual method for diffusing it, 

 will be first properly to educate, and then to invoke the co-opera- 

 tion of the Ladies. Their potent influence has been felt, and owned, 

 in many a noble cause ; and I cannot permit myself to doubt its 

 controlling eificacy in this. 



DISCOUESE II. 

 Definition of the Vegetable Kingdom. 



IN this Discourse, it is proposed to define what is meant by the 

 terms, Vegetable Kingdom, and to notice those characters by which 

 a Plant is known, and distinguished from the other objects in 

 nature. 



The material world has been arranged, by the generality of 

 Naturalists, in three great divisions, which they have denominated 

 the Mineral, the Vegetable, and the Animal Kingdoms. These three 

 Kingdoms are, for the most part, readily distinguishable by the 

 jnost superficial observer; yet, so nearly do the tribes, on the con- 

 fines of the divisions, approach each other in structure and character, 

 that it is by no means easy, with descriptive phrases, or definitions, 

 to draw a satisfactory and unexceptionable line of demarcation 

 between them. We have no difficulty, indeed, in distinguishing an 

 Ox from an Oak tree nor a cabbage from a boulder of granite : But, 

 when we descend to those humbler existences, called Zoophytes, and 

 Corallines, we are sometimes puzzled to determine which is Animal, 

 and which is Vegetable. Some of the lower orders of Plants, too, 

 (such as a portion of the Fungi, and Lichens,) are often so simple in 

 their structure, that they seem to be formed by a process somewhat 

 analogous to that of crystallization, and therein are approximated 

 to the Mineral kingdom. 



