INTRODUCTION. 219 



fruit from Holland, and not direct from any tropical 

 country ; for the Dutch preceded us in the career of 

 commercial adventure, and from them, principally, we 

 learnt our art of modern gardening. For nearly a 

 century and a half this country has steadily proceeded 

 in augmenting the number of its vegetable productions, 

 gathering from every quarter of the globe the fruits 

 and flowers indigenous to each, and cultivating them 

 at home, either to increase the large and valuable 

 number of plants of easy growth, and therefore, of 

 general use and ornament, or to render the produc- 

 tions of the torrid zone capable of administering to 

 luxurious gratification under our colder skies, by the 

 application of all that science has discovered to 

 make man so far independent of soil and tempera- 

 ture. Thus, the large number of our native plants 

 (for we call those native which have adapted themselves 

 to our climate) mark the gradual progress of our civi- 

 lization through the long period of two thousand years ; 

 whilst the almost infinite diversity of exotics which a 

 botanical garden offers, attest the triumphs of that 

 industry which has carried us as merchants or as 

 colonists over every region of the earth, and has 

 brought from every region whatever can administer 

 to our comforts and our luxuries, to the tastes and 

 the needful desires of the humblest as well as the 

 highest amongst us. To the same commerce we 

 owe the potatoe and the pine-apple ; the China 

 rose, whose flowers cluster round the cottage-porch, 

 and the Camellia which blooms in the conserva- 

 tory. The addition even of a flower, or an orna- 

 mental shrub, to those which we already possess, 

 is not to be regarded as a matter below the care of 

 industry and science. The more we extend our ac- 

 quaintance with the productions of nature, the more 

 are our minds elevated by contemplating the variety, 

 as well as the exceeding beauty, of the works of the 



