S&rown Owl 



LETTER XL. 



I'D the same. 



SELBORNE, June znd, 1778. 



EAR SIR, The standing objection to botany has 

 always been, that it is a pursuit that amuses the 

 fancy and exercises the memory without improving 

 the mind or advancing any real knowledge ; and 

 where the science is carried no farther than a mere 

 systematic classification, the charge is but too true. 

 But the botanist that is desirous of wiping off this 

 aspersion should be by no means content with a list of names ; he 

 should study plants philosophically, should investigate the laws of 

 vegetation, should examine the powers and virtues of efficacious 

 herbs, should promote their cultivation, and graft the gardener, the 

 planter, and the husbandman, on the phytologist. Not that system 



