Uhc $otami of the Jfarm 



HE term Botany is derived from the Greek word 



meaning an herb or grass. As a science it includes every- 

 thing relating to the vegetable kingdom, whether in a 

 living or in a fossil state. Its object is not, as some have 

 supposed, merely to name and arrange the vegetable pro- 

 ductions of the globe. It embraces a consideration of the 

 external forms of plants of their anatomical structure, 

 however minute of the functions which they perform 

 of their arrangement and classification of their dis- 

 tribution over the globe at the present and at former epochs, and of the 

 9 to which they are subservient. It examines the plant in its ear- 

 liest state of development, when it appears as a simple cell, and follows it 

 through all its stages of progress until it attains maturity. It takes a 

 comprehensive view of all the plants which cover the earth, from the 

 minutest lichen or moss, only visible by the aid of the microscope, to the 

 j-antic productions of the tropics. It marks the relations which 

 subsist between all members of the vegetable world, and traces the mode 

 in which the most despised weeds contribute to the growth of the mighty 

 './..MS of the forest. It is a science, then, which demands careful and 

 minute inv. ->t 'nations requires great powers of observation and research, 

 and is well fitted to train the menial powers to vigorous and prompt ac- 



Botany may !> divided into the following departments : 1. S' 

 Botany, having reference to the anatomical structure of the various part^ 

 eluding ve U 'etahle Histology, or the microscopic examination 

 _'. M<>ri>}i/!t'i<-<i! Dotany, or the study of the form of plants 

 two dcj.ai-tm.-u! Ran included 00 



raphy. ,*>. /'//_, <l Botany, which LS 



some termed Oiy idy <>f tin- life of the entire plant an: 



or the conoid. 'ration of the functions of the living plant. 1 / 



;md classification of plat (Jeo- 



:.-ration of the m->de in whi -h plants are 

 i over the ditleivnt (juarters of the globe. G. Bo- 



