

PRELIMINARY DISCOURSES. IX 



This ought not to be the case, among a people invested with the 

 lofty privileges which we enjoy. The rising generation, at least, 

 should be taught to notice what they see, to observe, to think, and 

 to discriminate. Our young Farmers should learn to cultivate their 

 minds, as carefully as they do their acres; and not be permitted to 

 grow up in the neglect of their noblest faculties, nor as a modern 

 writer expresses it be content "to wander among the productions 

 of Nature, with little more perception, or enjoyment of her charms, 

 than a cow on a common, or a goose on a green." 



It is not unusual to hear persons say, that they should really like 

 very much to cultivate an acquaintance with the Natural Sciences 

 and especially Botany, if they only had time for such pursuits. 

 I beg leave to suggest to these worthy people, that they have mis- 

 apprehended the true nature of their complaint, and that they 

 not only deceive, but really flatter themselves, by relying upon such 

 an excuse. It is not so much the want of time, which afflicts them, 

 as it is the want of taste, and the neglect of opportunities. Most 

 people contrive to find time for what they earnestly desire to do ; 

 and if driven to the necessity, are apt to take it, at any rate, for 

 those pursuits which they are resolved upon. But the fact is, we 

 all idle away countless hours of our existence especially in the 

 morning of life which might be successfully devoted to the attain- 

 ment of useful knowledge* 



It is true, indeed, that the higher intellectual enjoyments, afforded 

 by "the amiable Science," can only be fully understood by those 

 who are blest with a lively sense of the Beautiful, in Nature. Its 

 purest delights necessarily inure to votaries of that description ; for, 

 according to the proverbial philosophy of honest SANCHO PANZA 

 " No es la miel para la boca del asno:" Yet it is no less true, that 

 taste is a faculty which can be cultivated ; and opportunities to be 

 improved, happen to all. Some of the most enthusiastic and suc- 

 cessful students of Nature that I have ever known, prosecuted their 

 inquiries under a constant pressure of the every-day cares and 

 duties of life ; and yet were remarkable for the exemplary perform- 

 ance of those duties. { 



series of essays, for the purpose of rousing the farmers to a simultaneous attack 

 upon what he supposed to be the Canada Thistle, It was soon discovered, how- 

 ever, that the plant which he had in view, was the comparatively harmless 

 Dipsacus sylvestris, Mill, or Wild Teasel : and yet the real Canada Thistle (Cirrium 

 arvense, Scop.) was then actually introduced, and spreading around him, tmre 

 cognized and unknown, either by himself or his neighbors J 



f " Alas for us, when we become so sunk in utilitarian toil as to be blind to the 

 beauty with which even common cares are daily wreathed ! " Miaa MABGARET 

 FULLER. ^ 



