INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. IX 



obsolete; so that only from works chiefly filled with 

 either the repelling technicalities of professed botan- 

 ists, or dull details intended for the guidance of the 

 cultivator, could the general reader hope to glean 

 what he required, and such therefore might well feel 

 deterred from wading through voluminous treatises 

 only to gather, amid many pages of uninteresting 

 matter, here and there a fact which he might wish 

 to know and remember. Objects possessing far less 

 claim to attention shells and seaweeds, ferns and 

 fungi have all been repeatedly the theme of the 

 popular writer, while Nature's favourite children, 

 fruits, with all their rich endowments of beauty and 

 utility, have been passed by and neglected. The 

 writer desires that what has long since been done 

 for Common Objects of the Country and Common 

 Objects of the Sea Shore, should in the present 

 volume be effected for the Common Objects of our 

 daily Dessert; and this not only with a view to 

 show that there is something to be told respecting 

 them which may interest all, but, by indicating 

 how much yet remains to be discovered, to, perhaps, 

 lead a few to direct their attention to them for 



